Thank you, ‘Sex and the City,’ for being part of our story

Essay by Sandra Gonzalez, CNN

(CNN) — As far as television show relationships go, “Sex and the City” was the one I didn’t see coming.

It didn’t sweep me off my feet like the “Grey’s Anatomy” pilot did. It didn’t give me five years of bliss before slowly losing its spark like “Supernatural.” It was, in many ways, the friend I slowly fell for.

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’t 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!

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’t need them to be more than that — until I did.

Back in 2023, I decided to take on my third rewatch of the original series ahead of the second season of spinoff series “And Just Like That,” which this week will air its finale and possibly mark the conclusion of the universe (but nothing ever really ends these days, does it?). I hadn’t 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 – Sister Mary Clarence.

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.

So at night, I’d 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 “the girls,” 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 — those with her friends.

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! “True Hollywood Story” 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.

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.

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’re real people I’ve known for decades.

You may not have loved every minute of on-screen or off-screen drama in the “Sex and the City” universe, but — like real life, where the totality of our stories never hinge on one relationship, one breakup, one decision, one mistake, one triumph — a world rich enough to resonate across decades of your existence is something to be celebrated.

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 — like blessings disguised as broken hearts or broken hearts disguised as the end of the world — long enough to have hindsight, that’s a gift that never goes out of style.

It’s time to admit that “Sex and the City” was never a fling. It was love.

The-CNN-Wire
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