Belissima!

I know a woman - we'll call her Candy, cos that's not really a name anyway - who is in a long term relationship but is in love with another guy. She's been with her boyfriend for a long while now, but a year or so ago things started getting old and tired between them, and she fell for someone else. She is now in the unenviable position of having to make the ultimate choice: security, stability and fondness without the love she has been dreaming of, or uncertainty, excitement and passion with a person who makes her feel like she's really living for the first time. What would you do? Of course, I have oversimplified the situation - there is alot more to it than what seems like a formulaic rom-com (although if this was a rom-com, we all know how it would end - she'd choose the other guy and they'd sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after). It does make me aware of how very fragile relationships are, no matter how strong the foundations. And how life never really turns out the way you expect it to. Just a short while ago, Shoes and I hit a bit of a bump in the road, and I got scared for the first time in our 7 years together that we weren't right for each other. We got through it, and I'm all the happier for it. But I bet Candy thought she'd get through it too, and look at her now. There but for the grace of God go I, we say, when we have no idea if something similar is predestined for our own futures. Millions of women around the world experience the trauma of the breakdown of a long term relationship - the loss of the one you thought you'd be with forever. And every single one of those women went into that relationship believing they were solid as a rock, that nothing could shake their love. Life is so much bigger than us. We think we know; we think we're in control of who we are how we're going to end up, but really, we're not. Even being there for Candy as she goes through this, there's STILL a part of me that thinks, well, this will never happen to me. I guess I need to believe that - we all need to believe it can't happen to us; because if we believed the alternative, maybe we'd give up too easily. Maybe we wouldn't fight as hard for what we believe in, because we never really believed in it 100% in the first place.

As I prepare to go on a romantic holiday with my boyfriend, Candy is looking into her crystal ball in vain, trying to see who she ends up with. It's bizarre. You think real life is less exciting, less harrowing, less like a film script. But where do they get the ideas for film scripts in the first place? Ok, maybe not Jerry Bruckheimer movies.

Speaking of romantic holidays, in less than 24 hours I will be on my way to the airport, preparing for the best break ever in Italy! Belissima! Shoes and I are stupid with excitement. This will be our first holiday with just the two of us since we did Plett, Knysna and the Garden Route in September 2005. We go first to Venice, the city of gondola-inspired proposals (no, I'm not getting that lucky... unfortunately sharing money means I know he can't afford a ring right now!), and then on to the prettiest village on Lake Garda, Malcesine, with a day trip to Verona. I am so going to stare lovingly down at him from Juliet's balcony at the Capulet house. He's going to be seriously embarassed. We're going to use this time to chill the hell out, relax and meander around cobbled streets and markets, and sit at cafes and watch the world go by. London? Where's that? Winter? What kind (it's going to be 25 in Venice on Friday)? I can't wait. Will post once more tomorrow before I leave so I have an outlet for my no doubt excessive enthusiasm.