April 17, 2022

Editor: Lauren Cuppy
Artist: Serena Shen

We’ve all dreamt of leaving the iconic Bloomingdale’s off 3rd and 59th street. In a pair of royal blue Manolo Blahniks, holding shopping bags that weigh down our arms, we step outside and breathe in the crisp New York air. Well, maybe myself more than others, but there’s something so enthralling about the ambiance of living in a grandiose city with millions of people, shopping until your credit card company calls, and being one subway ride away from the people you love most in the world. But, the shoes will eventually give us blisters, and our dreams of a grand lifestyle in a big city may change.

Throughout the seven seasons of Sex and the City, narrator and main character Carrie Bradshaw showed women how to be unapologetically themselves. She brought us into the age of un-innocence - “no one has Breakfast at Tiffany’s and no one has affairs to remember.” Sex and the City wasn’t just a show about dating and sex– it represented what it means to be in love with yourself, and what authentic and meaningful relationships can look like. It’s not picking a woman up off the street and falling in love like in Pretty Woman: it’s hard work. But, what is more meaningful is real love, “ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, cant-live-without-each-other-love.” The type of love where you laugh until it hurts, or even the love you have in your dorm room with your three closest friends.

So, yes, I do in fact dream about dating millions of people and getting my heart broken a million times more because “no matter who breaks your heart, or how long it takes to heal, you’ll never go through it without your friends.” And it sounds corny, but that’s the point - people are kitschy, weird, and oddly sentimental, but we never give up. We all have our unapologetically direct Samantha, or our hopelessly romantic Charlotte, and even our rational, Miranda. We go to them to share everything from our little moments to our biggest milestones. While I’m not strutting through New York City in my Manolo Blankihs, I have found my Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda here in Ann Arbor. I have my Miranda who always gives me the harsh truths with no regrets, my Samantha who will go to bat for me, and my Charlotte who will always tell me to choose love, whether it's a guy or the new blouse I’m eyeing online.

The problems of womankind represented in Sex and the City don’t disappear with a change of zip code. There will always be people who screw you over, leave and come back again, and even those who you fall hopelessly in love with. But if there’s one thing Carrie Bradshaw taught me—other than having your money right where you can see it: in your closet—it’s that having love for yourself is what’s most important. For me, I’ll never be the girl with unrealistically perfect hair or the girl who can wear white and not spill on it, but who cares? At the end of the day, when our closets are closed and our favorite pair of jeans that hug us in all the right places are off, all we have are ourselves. We have so many chances in life to screw it all up, but we have just as many to make it alright. Carrie’s unapologetic demeanor taught me just that. Who the eff cares?

Don’t get me wrong, I can still hear the Manolo’s clicking against the ground in my dreams, and I can practically feel shopping bags weighing my arms down like a ton of bricks. Living like Carrie, yes, it’s a dream come true; but what’s most important are the people I choose to surround myself with. Whether it’s an Aidan or Mr. Big, or three of my best friends, I know where I am now and where I’ll be one day (but if it has nothing to do with the city that never sleeps, call my therapist). And whether I’m in Ann Arbor, Antarctica or even Amsterdam, I have my people who I plan to spend the rest of my life laughing, crying, and spending nights out with, and at the end of it all, I have myself. So in a classic Sara Jessica Parker exit, I’ll bow out of stage left with: “I couldn’t help but wonder,” what’s next?