How could anyone be a performance problem? Read and find out. To me, this is about true love and also trying to obtain a love of a lifetime and that is exactly how that love has turned out. But this is one of two versions to me.

From 1982 - 1993, all I would be able to say; is that I loved the girl with all of my heart, was never with her, even though I always wanted to and blamed my shyness for not asking her out . Yes, I simply thought of myself as a coward, which was a feeling that was sheer hell to reconcile and made me ashamed of the way I was in childhood. 

One has to summon up their personal courage and get it across to someone, that you not only like them, but wished to spend further and more intimate time with them. After being made fun of, ridiculed, verbally broken-in-half, having my job threatened or even being financially punished; I realized that being shy isn't such a bad thing after all and while a harsh response hurts, one realizes that perhaps not getting together is for the better.

So what happened in 1993, another event occurred that made me think that Jean was a one of a kind person and since I missed her, I muttered the words to myself, "Jean, if you can sneak back here, I will make love to you like no other..."

Right there, I had a memory pop into my head of a little girl putting a shaking hand on her head, looking upon the Heavens and exclaiming, "Oh! My, God!."

My first thought was, "What the hell?" and second, "Bullshit!" But the flood of memories was coming back, met with much the same skepticism and it actually became my goal to disprove these memories. The problem was, it wasn't working. The memory that came into my mind was of an incident occurring at the steps of Parkville Elementary School leading down an outside hill. I knew there weren't any steps, as the school was on flat land.

Notice my surprise when I found those steps. With each memory, I was like George C. Scott in the movie, "Ghost Story," banging on pipes to find the one that was waking him up every night at 2:00am. For whatever reason, as these memories popped up, I was able to verify some aspect of their occurrence. Ironically even gaining more insight or verification as I found that tree that I carved our initials on, with dates! That helped me pin down the timeframe and just how emotionally impacted with Jean, I actually was.

I figured there were sets of memories that would have none of this verification, but was strangely surprised. Like the ones that occurred in 11th Grade English class, which were private exchanges. Leave it to a jealous wife, now Ex, to find a class member from that class, who did remember me and stated that I was constantly being yelled at and then that I was constantly looking over where she was sitting at. That class member also ran into a girl that was sitting around Jean and remembered a strange comment that Jean said about me.

So why write it now? Even after the remembrances stopped, I simply thought that they were just cute stories, until I wrote them down and realized that she was most responsible for making me the person who I am. It is my dealings with Jean that had made me who I am and the last few chapters will be important to future, "Performance Problems" about my mother and death.

The experience over Jean totally destroyed me to the point that I was completely broken down. That's the harsh part; I had to learn not only exist in this life, but live it to the best of my abilities and talents and had to build myself up for that, in order to gain a new lease on not only life, but with its problems. I am not going to tell any more, as I would like you to read this without prejudice and also so you get a taste for the same shock and kick in the balls that I was subjected to.

The other reason that I feel it is important to write about this, is that it has the elements of the stories relayed to me by people who were married for a long time. The women loved telling me about their similar tales and the men had stories of their own. It is mainly about awkwardness of two people with true feelings and the process of reconciling them to be together for a life time, which formed not only a great love and understanding for each other, it also created the friendship that was needed for such a lasting relationship. Sadly these days, there seems to be hardly anyone that has their own and they will never be found in a bar full of people.

While the feelings of love can be very large in scope, the stories presented are very childish and immature, all with their element of humor. It grew to be an honor for me to once again be able to experience them, as that child of the time and then to reflect on them as an adult. If you have a loving heart and are not cursed with a totally cynical outlook, each story will have the aspects of awkwardness and humor. There may also be a lesson that you could use or, of a mindset to keep as well.

This love that I write about is of a totally unrequited nature. Tragically, despite my love or desire, I never completely found out what I meant to Jean or what role she was willing to have me play in her life. Simply, that is the way it is and will never be able to be changed.

As stated before, with other relationships I have been made fun of, publicly ridiculed, been subjected to the craziest thoughts of why not to get together, threatened and even punished, but the cruelest thing the other person can do is not be open enough to either give the other person a chance or opportunity to explain to them, why it isn't possible to get together or consider a relationship. Face to face that is. Most people would have the understanding and maturity to handle things.

With this poetry site, there are many poems about unrequited love, mainly from the women who seem to enjoy foisting it about. At times this is a fascination for some, and with others, as means of doing business without being encumbered with emotional second guesses and mostly as a game for some people; to see how far a person will cross the river to reach them. I admit that I have done my fair share of jumping from stone to stone and gotten plenty of wet foots.

I hope that after reading this, one will be able to see the truth about being dishonest or choosing not to answer love, as my conclusion is that this is the cruelest form of rejection. It is a shame that one would remain living and desire no reconciliation with people that have cared for someone, so much. Also, it really opens the door for sons of bitches, to either take advantage or you or the situation, or to provide them with pleasure at the pain that they cause.

I decided to present these as short stories instead of chapters. In addition of being a better format for FanStory, denoting a slight progression in a possible relationship and ending most with an amusing note; this will allow a sort of cap to individual memories and makes for a natural break as well as a slightly open end for the next one.

I am presenting these as matter of facts and considering that not too many seem to recall similar, many may find these too fantastic to have occurred. I will still present these as they happened and there is plenty of room to add flourishes to how the events affected me emotionally. One in particular, is a dream that I during the spring of sixth grade. It is mighty mature and unbelievable, but it not only occurred, without many words it totally through things off track and is one of the few memories that I didn't seem to lose.

Since that morning of that dream, it has haunted me throughout my life; making me wonder if that was the way things were supposed to end up with us, or causing sad feelings as that emotional power has never been there and sustained with anyone else.

The absolute last reason for writing this is, combined it is one hell of a story about one's faith...

... And not losing it!

MWK