I love you

The first person I ever loved (well what I believed was love when I was 10 years old) was Rachael Lloyd, or is spelt Rachel..? That was the question I asked when I was 10, and that is when I knew I was in love....
It was Valentine's day 1980. I wanted so much to give Rachael a card expressing my devotion (we had been kind of going together for a few weeks). The problem was, when I wrote the card out, I was unsure of the spelling of her name.. was it Racheal, Rachel or Rachael. I wrote it the first way, and knew it was wrong, and the card was spoiled.... I tried to change it to Rachael, but it just looked like two blobs of ink. I wrote out the rest of the card anyway and sealed the envelope. I walked to her house in the early evening and waited.... I don't know why I didn't post the card or hand it to her personally... I just waited around the back of her house, hoping she would just happen to walk by and I could hand her the card. I probably had reservations about giving a sub-standard card; or maybe I was afraid to show my feelings; maybe I was afraid of being laughed at and the kiss we had shared, was just an experiment to test the water for her, until she went scuba-diving with bigger boys..... anyway I stood around singing "It's Different For Girls" by Joe Jackson to myself, for an hour in the dark, and eventually slumped off home.
I didn't get a card off her anyway.
She moved away a few months afterward, and I remember the day she left clearly (we had stopped kind of going together by this point by the way). I saw her family packing the car and I saw the car drive away, I caught a glimpse of her dark bobbed hair in the backseat; I was standing in my living room playing "You Say You Don't Love Me" by the Buzzcocks, over and over again... I kept hoping she would come to my house to say goodbye.
She didn't, and I never waved her off. I was happy making myself depressed.
What a sack of shit I was then.
I think this experience pretty much describes my dealings with girls for the following 15 years; sitting in my room playing records and conjuring up events in my head about what I should have been doing for real.
I don't know if you've ever read Steppenwold by Hermann Hesse, but there is a section about this very experience (a boy's hesitancy to approach a girl which affects his later experiences with the opposite sex..) which in the story, the narrator has the power to correct and this one moment in time, now altered, changes everything.. the boy is no longer shy, he's able to interact on equal terms with those he desired, unlike me, who like a wallflower has let many an experience go by..... my only regrets are the things I didn't do or say, I don't regret actaully doing anything, good or bad, everything I've done has shaped me (just as the things I didn't do).
Anyway, if you're reading this Rachael Lloyd... I love you.