1 day ago
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Grownups often roll their eyes at young love: at how all-consuming it is for the teenagers involved, and how predictably doomed it is to fail. But my holiday romance changed the course of my life.
I was 16 when I met Giacomo at a bar in Atina, the tiny Italian mountain town where my parents grew up. There was a local festival one evening and tables were scarce, so our two friendship groups ended up squished around the same one. At more than 6ft tall, Giacomo was hard to miss. He was also friendly, smiley and, while he didn’t speak a word of English, I loved that he spared me the whole ciao bella swagger usually reserved for “foreign girls”.
I wasn’t foreign. Not really. My parents moved to Scotland in the 1960s, settling in the Borders town of Selkirk, but Atina had always been part of our lives, woven into every holiday, every dish on the dinner table. But, after meeting Giacomo, I began to see Italy differently. It wasn’t simply something I’d inherited any more; it was something I was experiencing for myself.
So, when summer ended and real life began, I didn’t return to Scotland as I’d originally planned. I hadn’t enjoyed school and had left as soon as I could, intending to continue my studies through other routes. I stayed in Italy to figure out what I wanted to do with my newfound sense of independence – and my newfound love.
When Giacomo moved to Rome to study architecture that autumn, he proved to be an excellent cicerone – an Italian word for a cultural guide – and I got to know a version of the city that went beyond its landmarks. Through him, I was introduced to student life, open-air music festivals, and secret little bakeries that sold pastries from the back door in the early hours.
But it wasn’t all gelato and romance. I drifted between courses and jobs, hoping something would click, but nothing ever quite did. I tried studying in Italy but couldn’t get past the oral exams and, missing home, committed to a degree at Edinburgh University where – to no one’s surprise – I ended up studying Italian. Giacomo and I tried to make it work long distance, but mobile phones didn’t exist and the constant push and pull between countries, cultures and expectations took its toll.
Our relationship didn’t last, but my love for Italy never died. The Italian side of me longed to be recognised and, after graduating, I moved to Italy again, this time to cities I chose for myself.
I lived in Florence and Bologna. I worked, studied, and made lasting friendships – some with what I think of as Italian-Italians, others with third-culture kids like me. Despite our varied backgrounds, often with four or five nationalities in the mix, we understood what it meant to belong to more than one place – and to no place at all. To always be missing somewhere, or someone.
Atina remained a constant, however, and I often spent holidays there, catching up with friends and family. Then, one summer, 12 years after our relationship ended, I saw Giacomo there, too – at the same bar where we had met all those years ago. Still tall (possibly even taller), still smiling. Still unable to speak a word of English.
This time, the bar wasn’t busy – we didn’t have to share a table but, perhaps glimpsing the hopeful teenagers we’d once been, we chose to. And a new chapter opened in a story we thought had ended.
Giacomo was going on holiday the next day, and we were both reluctant for the night to end. We lingered until we were the last ones at the bar, talking for so long that, at sunrise, his dad appeared to take him straight to the station, shaking his head at the sight of two thirtysomethings acting like teenagers. This time, we had mobile phones, so we exchanged numbers, and I remember wondering if it would come to anything, already half-knowing it would. Giacomo came to visit me in Bologna the first weekend he was free, and that became the first of many visits until, two years later, I moved to Rome.
We’ve now been married for more than a decade. We eloped – not because we’re wildly romantic, but because it was the only option that made emotional sense. We both had large families, many of whom had also emigrated and were now scattered across Europe. The thought of bringing everyone together – of choosing one country over another, one language, one version of celebration – felt impossible.
These days we’re officially based in the Scottish Borders, but our lives are still a mashup – from the way we flip between English and Italian (often in the same sentence) to our jointly owned business that straddles both countries and keeps us travelling back and forth. As we travel, we find ourselves filling in the 12-year gap in our story; beaches we both visited years apart, mutual friends we hadn’t realised we shared, and regional dishes familiar to one of us and new to the other. Perhaps our daughters will have their own holiday romances one day. I’ll try my best not to roll my eyes. Because, sometimes, it’s worth paying attention to the early instincts of young love.
