February 21st. My 24th birthday breakdown. Or not.

I didn’t want to be 23 years old. I knew what would come with it. I couldn’t evade the fact that when I was 17, I set an scenary full of goals that would be met once I’d turn 23. I would travel to France, study in La Sorbonne, get on a train and get to know Europe and meet a beautiful and talkative american boy. Yes, as some of you may have guessed, this delirious dream looks a bit too much like a movie plot. I hope that by knowing this you’ll have some compassion for me and my naiveté.

The film, for those of you who didn’t have a bell ringing after my last paragraph, is “Before Sunrise”, that idyllic movie that can change your life. My experience watching it when I was still in high school and about to be on my way to college, was groundbreaking.

It tells the love story of Jesse, from EE.UU., and Céline, from France. They find each other on a train in Europe and get to know one another and themselves. Well, when I watched it, in a twisted turn of events, I defied my ADD and paid close attention when Céline mentioned that she was 23.

Of course, I was about to be on my grand adventure to college, thought I would have the most incredible experiences AND definitely would get to travel to Europe, in a train, with a disheveled bag, a dress-put-on-a-t-shirt outfit, and most importantly would get to know MY Jesse. “Oh so romantic”, teen Gisela would say. “Yeah and such a burden, you silly sheep”, says old Gisela (Please trade “sheep” for some not so clean word).

I spent this whole past year trying to catch up, to learn some french, to finish my remaining exams and to meet dashingly beautiful and greasy haired strangers. Obviously I failed at most of this things because you can’t hurry life and what I tried to recreate was a work of fiction. So, by knowing that, I started to avoide reality and especially any “Before sunrise/Before sunset” TV marathon. I deprived myself from watching one of my favourite movies as it were “Antichrist” by Lars Von Trier.

But now I know I can’t run away. It’s february, and I will turn 24 on the 21^st. I think I’m finally accepting the fact that I’m no Céline, that I don’t have more than a hundred bucks on my piggybank so I’m not going to Europe anytime soon and that Jesse, well, he’s just a movie character, he is not real. “Before sunrise” is just a movie and it’s so magical that I believed blindfolded that its magic would translate into my life.

Yeah, thank God some resignation tainted with a hint of maturity came with these years.

The thing is, I know there’s magic in the world and I can’t get rid of this perception (and I don’t want to). I know that I have to accept the fact that I’m the only one that can find those sparkling moments, those inspiring people and create something pretty awesome on my own: my life, as it is, with all its ridiculousness and amazingness.

So, my plan for the few days that remain before my birthday is to give myself a break, appreciate my life as it is now, enjoy being single with no Jesse on sight and just watch that damn “Before Sunrise” DVD already.

I’m sure it will be good company while I enjoy discovering new gems of never ending knowledge such as Céline’s realization that “if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something”.

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