City Girls

Oh, how things change. Even though I’d only been a casual fan of the show, when the first Sex and the City movie was released in 2008 the premiere was the center of my life. You see, in May 2008 I was an entertainment reporter. I was working on a cover story for my magazine about the impact the show had on its fans and a roundup of all the local premiere parties planned. 


When Sex and the City 2 was released this May, however, I was busy grading research papers and final exams. In fact, I didn’t see the movie until last week, over a month after the premiere. 


The movie received horrible reviews, but I didn’t care. I don’t go to chick flicks for intellectual stimulation. I enjoyed SATC2 just as I did the first film and I left the theater with a hankering for a shopping spree. But during the movie something quite unexpected happened. For the first time ever, I found that I could actually relate to Carrie Bradshaw.


Since I enjoy Sex and the City, I love fashion and I’m a former columnist you might find it hard to believe that I never found Carrie relatable. But let’s be honest, she can be a selfish brat sometimes. And Carrie is true to character is the second movie, whining like a baby simply because her husband wants to relax on the sofa and watch TV after a hard day at work. 


Throughout the movie, however, Carrie is having some legitimate struggles. She’s worried about being transformed from a hip New York socialite to half of a boring, old married couple. And as a writer, her columns and books can no longer detail her life as a sexy single and she’s worried she can’t hang in matrimony territory. In other words, she just doesn’t feel like herself. And that is something I totally get. 


I haven’t felt like myself since the day I moved to Birmingham in July of last year. Yes, this is my hometown, but the woman I became during my years in Berkeley, California and Louisville, Kentucky, is quite different from the girl I left here in Birmingham years ago.  I’m stumbling through this city trying to find my place in it. 


And the most difficult part of this transition, of course, has been the career change. I went from interviewing celebrities on red carpets to marking grammar errors in red ink. Now that I’m an educator I have little time for writing and I miss it so much I feel love sick. 


But I’m going to hang in there, nonetheless. I am confident God led me back here for a reason. So I’m going to dig through Birmingham’s rich red earth until I find treasure.