Love is like penicillin...good for most, lethal for some of us!

If you have not seen the “Valentines Day” movie and still intend to, then don’t read further.

It was only my second ever Valentines Day on my own since I was a first year student a very long time ago. But there was NO WAY that being alone was going to rob me of the joy of Valentines Day this time, so I took myself off to the movies to see … you got it… Valentines Day! And it felt like I was watching my own biography, made glamorous and less unbelievable by Hollywood.

I got engaged on Valentines Day to husband number 2. But unlike the hero of the movie, who proposes to his lady love on Valentines Day, I was not spared actually getting married to the wrong person. He turned me into a serial divorcee! Over a decade prior to that, husband number one admitted to me on Valentines Day that he was having an affair! Nice one! He was the Doctor guy who sends flowers to two ladies, his wife and his girlfriend. I was the doctor’s wife (for real), but unlike in the movie where she leaves with dignity, I chose to forgive and forget and stick around, giving him the time to secretly start a family with his girlfriend. Hollywood would think that is just too crass and far fetched to put into the movies.

Another character that would have been in my biography but Hollywood would have thought of as far too unreal, was the in-between-the-marriages guy. This was an un-married man (his only virtue), who kept at least three women thinking they were THE ONE! Talk about juggling…this guy was the expert! I would imagine Brad Pitt playing this role, similar to the one he played in “Burn after Reading”, running between three different florists getting flowers sent, getting completely confused with the names and addresses, and then spending Valentines on his own anyway because it would be too awkward to set up something with either all three at different times, or just one, the favourite. But they are all loved equally…no favourite…what the heck, go and play tennis with the buddies instead!

But all this stuff has not turned me into a total love cynic. For two reasons: Firstly, my parents are about to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary, analogous to the Shirley McClean marriage in the movie. For both my folks it was their first marriage, they were barely in their twenties when they married, and they have lived their lives as a single unit all that time, with its ups and downs. And they are still in love. My mom always buys my dad special little things whenever we go on shopping trips, like an exotic nougat, or special Turkish Delight. And he has said to me on a couple of occasions in the last few years that he would not know how to live without her. With this example, I have to believe that real committed love really does happen for some people.

And I believe and hope in it, especially for Son and Boet; my second reason for not becoming a bitter old love-cynical divorcee. They deserve to have a lifelong, enriching and growing partnership, and I think they know what to do to maintain good relationships. Already Boet has found his life partner I think. They are like two halves of a whole and I can see them getting old together, still laughing at each others jokes and showing affection all the time. Son is still a bit young to have found someone with the “forever” stamp on, but he commented to me the other day that he understood that men and women have different roles in running a home but he saw the cooking in the household to be a shared responsibility. A real man of the times and the lady who gets his heart will be very lucky!

I am surrounded by lots of loving relationships amongst my friends too. My cousin Bron has her HTB (husband to be), and our Dear Kiwi friend Shaz cannot stop talking about how in love she is with her man. My old friends Yvette and Bev from a book club we had when we all still lived in Boksburg are also still devoted wives and completely in love with their hubbies. And my BFF (best friend forever), Madelie, is an award winning romance writer who in her acceptance speech when she won an ATKV Veertjie, admitted that all the heroes in her stories are modelled on her husband!

Clearly love is out there and it makes people happy. I believe it is better to be in love with, and be loved by the right person than to be alone. But loving the wrong person is a disaster; hundreds of times worse than being alone. And being closer to fifty than I am to forty, I realise that if one is a serial wrong-choice-maker, then stay away from making the choices. Too little lifetime left to make another wrong choice. As sure as death and taxes are, is the certainty that I will never get married again. I am allergic to marriage. Like penicillin is good for most people, but not for everyone. It can also kill!

The character from the movie I identify with mostly is the one played by Julia Roberts. The soldier mom who travels halfway around the world to be with her little boy for Valentines Day! I sooooo know how she felt when she put her arms around him and loved him unconditionally! I am just luckier, I have two such Valentines!

I was so filled with smile by this movie that I went home and baked a special batch of my version of millionaire’s shortbread for my Valentines. I put on a belly dancing CD my dear friend Tracey has lent me and while twirling my ample hips around the kitchen, pretending to turn in a light bulb with my right hand and pat and imaginary dog with my left hand, I immersed myself in the love centre of our home…the kitchen!

Add to a big brick of butter that is chopped up, two cups of icing sugar and four cups of sifted flour and then put your hands in and remember that you are doing this for love…get to a nice dough (it takes risotto-type patience) and your hands will be wonderfully soft from all the butter – silver lining. Make little goonie size balls (remember the size of the big marbles?) and put them on a baking tray, allowing enough room between them to spread during baking. I found discs of dark chocolate at the Bake-a-ton shop nearby, so I pressed a disc onto the top of each ball, flattening it out a little. They are baked at 180 deg for 12 minutes. And this recipe makes a lot…enough to spread the love beyond my two Valentines! It made a whole tin and an improvised Valentines Cookie Jar full.