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\n As far as television show relationships go, \u201cSex and the City\u201d was the one I didn\u2019t see coming.\n <\/p>\n
\n It didn\u2019t sweep me off my feet like the \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d pilot did. It didn\u2019t give me five years of bliss before slowly losing its spark like \u201cSupernatural.\u201d It was, in many ways, the friend I slowly fell for.\n <\/p>\n
\n The show debuted in 1998, when I was too young to be watching it and my older sister was way too cool to care. I was a kid, so obviously didn\u2019t see myself in any of the women at the time, but I appreciated being privy to the adult conversations. Did they all talk and think like this? Weird!\n <\/p>\n
\n Growing up along the border in Texas, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha were not women I knew in real life and not women I ever imagined myself being. But even as a preteen, I knew they were fabulous, funny and a good time. I didn\u2019t need them to be more than that \u2014 until I did.\n <\/p>\n
\n Back in 2023, I decided to take on my third rewatch of the original series ahead of the second season of spinoff series \u201cAnd Just Like That,\u201d which this week will air its finale and possibly mark the conclusion of the universe (but nothing ever really <\/em>ends these days, does it?)<\/em>. I hadn\u2019t seen the show from the beginning since my early 20s, when I was sexless in the city, having moved to New York with goals, ambitions and living up to the nickname bestowed upon me by my sisters after years of prudishness \u2013 Sister Mary Clarence.\n <\/p>\n\n This time, I was one month postpartum and having a hard time. Because the elusive perfect latch was not part of my motherhood story, I was exclusively pumping and needed to pump every 2-3 hours around the clock for a baby that needed to eat every 3-4 hours. Do the math. I was exhausted and very much in need of a laugh not caused by sleep-deprived mania.\n <\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n So at night, I\u2019d dull the sound of my whooshing breast pump with a blanket as I sat across from my sleeping son and pop my earbuds in to watch \u201cthe girls,\u201d as they became known in my head. By the time I got to Season 4, I was crying with Miranda as she struggled to adapt to motherhood, understanding deeply when she confided in Carrie that her fear was losing the connections that she valued the most \u2014 those with her friends.\n <\/p>\n
\n Two seasons later, when Charlotte had her miscarriage, I was thrown again. Just the year before, that sad lump on the couch had been me, and I did not recover in a day or with the help of an E! \u201cTrue Hollywood Story\u201d about Elizabeth Taylor. I cried for Charlotte because I knew her heartache, and I was grateful to know I got through it, with a whooshing breast pump to prove it.\n <\/p>\n
\n Watching the show in my 20s had landed differently than my initial watch because by then, I knew what it meant to be lonely, to be broke because you love shoes, to feel broken, to be a good friend and be a bad one.\n <\/p>\n
\n Watching the original show and spin-off in my 30s has been a mixed bag. I have more empathy for their younger selves, more judgement for the older ones who I feel should know better by now and endless amusement that I talk about fictional characters like they\u2019re real people I\u2019ve known for decades.\n <\/p>\n
\n You may not have loved every minute of on-screen or off-screen drama in the \u201cSex and the City\u201d universe, but \u2014 like real life, where the totality of our stories never hinge on one relationship, one breakup, one decision, one mistake, one triumph \u2014 a world rich enough to resonate across decades of your existence is something to be celebrated.\n <\/p>\n
\n At its best, the show has been perspective wrapped in a Tiffany blue box, if you will. Because it has been the reminder that if you survive hard things \u2014 like blessings disguised as broken hearts or broken hearts disguised as the end of the world \u2014 long enough to have hindsight, that\u2019s a gift that never goes out of style.\n <\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s time to admit that \u201cSex and the City\u201d was never a fling. It was love.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n