Before Sunrise, at Thirty-Three: What Took Me So Long?

Almost thirty-three, and I just watched Before Sunrise for the very first time. Not because I was waiting for the right moment or anything romantic like that. I just avoided it. For years. It was always there, like background noise I never turned up. Everyone else I know saw it ages ago. Rented it, streamed it, quoted it, loved it. And I knew what it was about. I knew the mood, the train, the charm. But something in me couldn’t handle it. Not then. Not when I’d already let the softest parts of myself harden. Until last night. Until I pressed play and sat still with the version de mí que todavía quiere creer.

Broken-down romance doesn’t look dramatic in my life. It looks like forgetting how to daydream. Like skipping the slow songs because they make me nervous. Like brushing past someone who looks at me too long on the metro. I made that switch years ago. Chose usefulness. Picked drive, output, improvement. Made myself a checklist. Finished my degrees, worked, kept moving. But Before Sunrise dragged me back to a place I swore I had outgrown. Not because of Jesse. Not even because of Céline. But because watching them made me realize how long it’s been since I let someone interrupt my plans.

Can’t lie, it stung. The kind of sting that doesn’t shout. It just sits there, behind your eyes, while you pretend you’re just watching a movie. But you’re not. You’re remembering every almost. Every person you never stopped for. Every version of yourself you tucked away to be efficient, dependable, respected. And it’s not that you regret growing up, exactly. It’s just that you forgot how much you used to hope. This film isn’t flashy or loud. It just holds your hand for a little while and says, hey, you used to want more than this.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think one night with someone fixes anything. That’s not what broke me. What got to me was how gentle it all was. No fear, no strategy. Just two people saying things out loud that they weren’t sure they were allowed to say. I used to talk like that. Used to sit in parks and wonder out loud. Used to say too much. And I don’t anymore. Maybe that’s normal. Maybe that’s part of surviving. But maybe I’ve also gone quiet in the places that mattered most.

Every scene felt like a dare. To feel again. To let my guard down for just one night. Not to fall in love, but to remember how it feels to be human with someone else. To not perform. To not prepare. And honestly, I didn’t know how much I missed that until it showed up on my screen thirty years too late. Before Sunrise isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about presence. And last night, for the first time in a long time, I was fully there. Just me, a film, and the part of my heart I thought I had lost for good.