While it may seem like only a silly, albeit entertaining, series, Sex and the City is also about getting to know and be comfortable with one’s self and choices. Because I witness this growth process in myself, re-watching the series every few years reminds me of how we change yet stay the same. For many women, me included, we endure a long journey laden with stumbles, falls, and climbing up over the ledge, repeatedly, before we can give voice to our uniquely individual truth. And even after discovering our authentic voice, we lose and find it again how many times? And this becomes even more complex when falling in -- and out of -- love is added to the journey.
In 1998, when the series began for thirty-something Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha, I was thirty-seven. I had just been through four years of intense and major changes, had been living the single life for over a decade, and felt like I was in pretty good company with these four. Not similar on the outside, but on the inside. After all, they were more ambitious and stylish than I was, my spiritual inclinations set me apart from them, and I was a country-girl, but how could I not relate to them when I was also a single woman in her thirties trying to figure out who I was and maybe, just maybe, find love along the way? Add into the mix that in 1999 I met the love of my life, and I was hooked into every episode.
I just finished watching the series from start to finish again, including the two movies, and I laughed so hard I nearly cried sometimes! As Carrie says:
“The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all
is the one you have with yourself.
And if you find someone to love the you you love,
well, that’s just fabulous.”
Another aspect of this series that I now see, and I’m not sure I did the first time around, is how all of these women soften through their experiences while trying to retain their voices. This is not an easy task in the modern world, whether ten, twenty or even thirty years ago. When we allow love to find us, we are within the feminine essence of being; when we seek to find love, especially through a driven or desperate or demanding energy, that is the masculine. How does love come to us? And is it important to understand this?
Marion Woodman wrote that:
Marion Woodman wrote that:
“Women today are reaping the harvest of generations of rape.
Grandmothers and mothers have adjusted to patriarchal values
to the point of extinguishing their own femininity.”
While at first glance, the women of Sex and the City might appear to be ultra-feminine … are they? Do clothes and make-up, style and sex appeal result in or from core feminine energy? Or do we need to look closer, to draw aside the veil? By the time the series wraps, each of the four women has found her own path to balancing the opposites of animus and anima; this meant they had to soften into their relationships and expectations, while remaining firm in Self.
I wonder what I will think the next time I watch Sex and the City? Where will I be in my own life in another five or so years — will my voice be lost or found? What about you?
Last, but far from least, is how much I like the friendship maintained between these women. No matter what their trials and tribulations, they were always available for and forgiving of each other.
Here's to women, authenticity, feminine energy, and friendship!
