Growing up a child of the 2000s, I came to know the name “Carrie Bradshaw.” Growing up in a conservative pocket of the South West, I couldn’t tell you where the name came from. 

It wasn’t until the infamous 2020 pandemic that I learned what power that name had, along with the names of the other three women that ran New York City in the early aughts: The classy and high society Charlotte York, fiery and strong-willed Miranda Hobbes, and the sex queen herself, Samantha Jones.

As obscene as the HBO staple can be, (and is known for) it was a godsend that I discovered it at the corner of Quarter-Life Crisis and Twenty-Fifth Street.  

At 25, I was a year out from undergrad graduation (almost a whole degree after most people receive their bachelor’s), single–as per usual, and watching my best friend [[who discovered SATC with me (‘: ]] fall in love with the man who would later be her husband—In summation, I had no college degree, no love life, and was left to people watch everyone around me finish school and get married. A *BEAUTIFUL* place to be, rest assured.  

Here’s what I did have: Sex and the City. And I thank the heavens for that. 

Articles have come out in recent years analyzing why Carrie Bradshaw was such an A. awful person and B. bad girlfriend. This article won’t be focusing on Carrie’s faults. After all, we all have them. 

For me, I saw a girl I could relate to. Curly hair, aspiring writer, and man troubles up the wall.

 Hi – Elena Castro. Nice to meet ya. 

Just like how Carrie had her girlfriends to turn to, I had mine. They were Z, H, and S, and together we navigated life and love. Between the three of them, they are married, engaged, and long-term committed. I was 0 for 2.5. 

I resonated so much with the women of SATC that I dedicated a senior year final to episode 9 from season 6: “A Women’s Right to Shoes.” 

What I gained so much from this show was something I was seriously lacking at the time. Me. 

Being in Utah at a Christian university with friends getting wedded off left and right, my lack thereof consumed much of my mental capacity. Over the years of seeing friends leave my side to join that of a man, I forgot what MY goals were. Suddenly, there was only one thing on the to-do list: Get married. 

As a child, I dreamed of being Andy Sachs from The Devil Wears Prada, living in New York, and working at a big magazine. Writing, hopefully. I dashed those dreams aside from an early age because I thought, “good Christian girls don’t leave home and move to big cities, they stay home and have babies.” I trained myself into thinking that I wasn’t capable of more. In hindsight, being single forced me to seek after what I wanted, and over time, I discovered that little girl’s big city dreams once more.

Sex and the City showed me, even two decades AFTER the show’s release, how much women are still faced with the juggling of traditional roles and how we are still shamed for wanting more. SATC made me not ashamed of that–not ashamed to want more and to strive and work for it. Man or no man. Here’s to the New York City apartment, the Manolo Blahnik’s, and the Vogue freelancing.

It was from these four friends that I learned to appreciate my female friendships in a new way, to reach for those once “unattainable” goals, and I even picked up a thing or two about sex and city life.

And Just Like That, after binges and re-runs, Sex and the City taught me to have a newfound comfort in life sans “I do.”