Hi all!
New Brokie speaking! well, new in this message board, not so new to the movie, as it changed my life 13 years ago. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm from Barcelona, I'm now 37, which means I was only 24 when it all started. Time flies, indeed, and there's never enough

My story might be similar to many of yours. Saw the movie 5 times at the cinema, commented on a spanish-speaking message board (I'm so sorry I didn't find this one back then!), bought the DVD, book, soundtrack, everything. I literally cried for a whole year. It was the most devastating, sad time in my life and I'm still wondering WHY it affected me so deeply.This must be "the" question, right? WHY. Anway, for reasons that I still don't understand, after a year or so, around mid 2007, the movie and its effects started to fade away. I was back to the "normal life", and I forgot it to the point that Heath's death in 2008 didn't really hit me, I saw him/the movie as a distant thing, something already buried in the past. I guess I had cried too much, I had been too sad in 2006-2007 that somehow I developed a way to protect myself (by forgetting). I still don't know.
More than a decade after, last month exactly, I had the need to watch the movie again, and here I am again, feeling like I used to in 2006, feeling teary only by thinking about Jack and Ennis. These past weeks I've been in a kind of trip through my memories of that time, of it all. And this is how I found the Facebook Group and now this amazing message board. I'm more than happy to see that there is still life here, I was really fearing I might be alone after so many years! I've also found out that you all participated in a book, this is GREAT and I have already ordered it. I wish I had known this site, and you all, before...
And this is my present and my past, but I'm excited about my future plans, thhat include: a) a gathering in London to see Jake's theater play in September with some of you, and b) a trip to Alberta in the summer 2020, to visit the movie locations (I'll open a thread nearer the date to see if anyone wants to join me!!).
That's all, thank you so much for reading. I'm catching up reading as many posts as I can.
Speak soon dear brokies!