Life Lessons from Miss Bradshaw

I’ve definitely talked about my love for Sex and the City before. I’ve seen every episode, numerous times -- when I put it on, I feel like I’m hanging out with a group of friends. Those four women put it all out there in a way that had never been done before. As an audience, we shared in their good times and their successes, but more importantly, we shared their fears, struggles, insecurities, and problems too.

Of course, in the back of our minds, we always knew it was just a TV show, right? But how comforting it was - and still is - to turn it on for a few minutes and watch as a group of beautiful, sophisticated, with-it women struggled with the same kinds of problems as we did.

I’m not usually one to obsess about or put up long quotes from movies or TV shows (maybe with the exceptions of Mean Girls and Glee because I die over them in an obsessive unhealthy way), but when you’re feeling out-of-sorts or a little nostalgic, Carrie does it best, and always has.

“Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.”

Lately I’ve been thinking about the past. About things that were, things I did, things I said. About people and things and relationships that I haven’t thought about in years. It seems that just as things are sailing along smoothly and life finally seems to be settling on down, something happens to stir it all up. A phone call. An email. An announcement. A text. Just a few words, and suddenly everything seems different.

It’s not that my past is only an anchor. On the contrary, I have grown and changed more in the past five or six years than I seriously would have ever thought possible, and it is only by looking back and remembering those moments that made me change, that I can recognize myself as who I have become today. I love the person who I have become - I wake up each morning happy and full of self-confidence - and I know that I walk proudly because everywhere I go, I carry with me the lessons that I learned, the friendships that I hold strong, the memories that I made. Most of the time, my past strengthens me.

It’s just that certain parts of the past should stay in the past. No need in dragging them out. No need in bringing them up. Everything I’ve been through has made me what I am today, including my mistakes. But, like most people, I’d prefer it if the past stayed in the past where I’ve left it.

“Maybe mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Maybe if we had never veered off course, we wouldn’t fall in love, have babies, or be who we are. After all, things change. So do cities. People come into your life and they go. But it’s comforting to know that the ones you love are always in your heart... and if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away.”

Things change all the time. They change, and sometimes, those changes suck. I know myself, and I know how bad I am with change. But change doesn’t always have to be so terrible.

I am a smarter, stronger, more independent, more vibrant person because of certain changes in my life. I didn’t let those changes happen to me passively - I MADE them happen. I faced mistakes head on. I left them in the past.

I let go of my anchors.