It's official. I cannot not shop. Last week I was browsing for "virtual" shirts, and I made the mistake of visiting Victoria's Secret Online. I deeply suspect that those designers all have degrees in psychology, because the minute I think VS has nothing new or isn't really as great as I thought, Boom! there are fifty new bra tops in awesome colors screaming my name. I bought two. Hank knows. Because of all this (and because it's the month of love), I'm christening this ensemble, "Pink is in the Air."
I'm writing in spurts. Last week, I wrote three days in a row. The push was to get to today's episode, during which Big makes an appearance. But when I watched it, I didn't feel like writing about Big and Carrie. He just seems like an asshole. So, I skipped three days. Now, I'm writing about being in your twenties. I'm on a Big boycott.
Overview. The women rent a summer house in the Hamptons. While there, Charlotte dates a twenty-six-year-old and gets crabs. Samantha looses a PR opportunity to her younger counterpart, but the girl eventually comes crawling to Samantha for help. Carrie has a new suitor (a romantic, kind, and handsome doctor), but she's wary about starting something serious with him. She wonders if he's just good on paper and if she's ready for a relationship. Carrie also runs into Big, back from Paris after his job fell through and with a new, gorgeous, French, twenty-something girlfriend. Miranda's main role is to hold Carrie's hair back when the latter pukes.
Sad. And predictable. But no more about that. On to being twenty. Carrie asks, "Twenty-something girls, friend or foe?" She decides that, overall, they pose the greatest threat to themselves (unless one steals the man you loved, of course). As a twenty-something, I got to thinking about age...
I've always felt old. I don't know why or when exactly it happened, but one day, probably sometime in middle school, I woke up feeling forty. It was likely after being rejected by my umpteenth boy crush. It seemed all of my friends had beautiful, straight hair and lithe figures. I had poofy hair and was slightly chubby. Thus, they were the boy magnets, and I was the best friend.
If I wasn't a hopeless romantic, this probably would have been fine. Instead, I started writing poetry in 7th grade about lost love, breakups, dramatic glances, etc. I guess you could say that's what I still write about. Just over Christmas, I found my old collection. I read them all to Hank, and I couldn't believe my twelve-year-old self had written that stuff. I mean, how could I have known any of that? I had never even gone on a date.
My freshman year in high school, on the other hand, was a revelation. All of the sudden, for no apparent reason, I lost my baby weight and learned the power of hair gel. Older guys wanted to date me, and I was hungry for the attention. I didn't sleep around, but I sure kissed around. It felt good to be experiencing what I had been curious about for years and thought would always be elusive. I became friends with the senior girls on my volleyball team. That first year, I was in heaven. I felt like a big, new world had opened up--one in which I could be anything I wanted.
Two years later, I was over it all. I had dated the hot high school jocks, and they sucked. I started reading Kurt Vonnegut, Ayn Rand, and J. D. Salinger. I pulled away from my more popular friends, embraced my nerdy side, and dreamed of the opportunities that would await me at college--real men and smart professors. When I got wait-listed at Duke, my chances appearing slim, I picked the next-farthest-away-from-Montana school: NYU, the mysterious place where I discovered pizza slices, gay people, and, most important of all, Sex and the City.
Though my life wasn't at all like the characters' lives, their thoughts, feelings, and romantic experiences spoke to me. I felt like I could relate to Miranda's cynicism, to Carrie's humor, and to Charlotte naivity. I admired Samantha's frankness. I loved that they had their own careers and passions. I wanted to be one of those women, and inside, I sort of felt like I was. I thought, "Finally, here are women I can relate to." I was 18.
Today, I realized something important: that I know nothing about being in my mid-thirties or being thirty-something like Carrie and her friends. Why? I'm twenty-seven. I'm not twenty-eight, which I say I am but won't be until later this month. And I'm not almost thirty. I'm twenty-seven. All of the stereotypes that Carrie pins on women my age--bad jobs, unstable relationships, crappy apartments, crippling insecurity--have applied to me at least once in the past seven years. Bad jobs (or no jobs) and insecurity still apply to some extent. Yes, I'm a twenty-something girl. I am the age I am. It's about time I faced that.
True, one of my closest friends is a man in his sixties. Another is a 47-year-old woman in Seattle. Maybe I'm a young, old soul. But there's something about talking with friends my age about issues we're all facing--financial worries, moving in with our boyfriends, having children, starting careers, getting married--that is invaluable. It sure makes me feel less lonely.
So, here's to loving how old you are, however old (or young) that is, and to taking life one day at a time, not one minute to soon.
Hope you'll be back. I will.
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