ALMOST CARRIE ~ Ten Years Later

Last week, as I re-watched “Models and Mortals” in preparation for this column, I realized something startling: I am finally as old as Carrie was in Season One.  I am finally 32.

Ten years ago, on September 11th, 2001, I was living in New York for the first time, subletting a place on 137th Street in Harlem.  I was two months out of college and had a shitty job telemarketing for the Roundabout Theatre Company.  I worked nights and there was no need to ever get up early.  My roommate had more traditional employment: he worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of One World Trade.

Around 8:55 that Tuesday, the phone woke me up.  It was my roommate telling me he was alright.  I had no idea what he was talking about.  “There is a hole, a giant hole in the side of my building.  Turn on the TV.  I’m coming home.”  He had been due at work at 8:30, but that morning he had overslept.

I turned on the television and within a few minutes, I saw the second plane hit.  My roommate and I spent the next several weeks not moving from the couch.  Work was cancelled indefinitely.  My roommate lost 658 co-workers.

A month later, I got my first official apartment with two girlfriends from college.  One of them temped at some company connected with the entertainment industry, and she got to bring home free DVDs (could they have been tapes?) as a perk.  One night, she brought home Season One of Sex and the City.  I was 22 years old.

We were mesmerized.  Episode after episode, we watched our beautiful city in its pre-9/11 form, showcased in the most extraordinary ways.  This was the city we had dreamt of, the city we swore we’d live in one day, the city we promised never to leave.  This was the city that, despite our newness, was ours, even more so because we’d been there on its most terrible day.

I have moved five times since I came here.  My current apartment is in Boerum Hill, in Brooklyn, and from the little terrace of my fourth floor walk-up, I can see lower Manhattan.  I have a clear view of One World Trade, with its 58 completed floors and cranes at the top.  I am 32, the same age Carrie was when she decided to have sex like a man, and the same age she was when she realized that that wouldn’t quite work.  I am 32, the same age Carrie was when she thought she might be pregnant, the same age she was when she had her picture put on the side of a bus, the same age she was when she collided with Mr. Big on the street, the contents of her purse scattering on the sidewalk for the whole world to see.

Am I in the same place that Carrie was when she began?  A lot has happened since I was 22.  I’ve gotten married, I’ve bought an apartment, I’ve gone to graduate school.  I’ve been depressed, I’ve failed loved ones, I’ve switched careers.  I’d like to think I’ve had sex like a man, and I’ve certainly had my share of pregnancy scares.  I have a relationship that is ahead of schedule, but a writing career that is way behind.  The only constant in all of this has been New York, the magnificent backdrop to every up and down.

I was recently talking to a friend in California who was asking about One World Trade, asking about it’s progress.  “The rest of the country doesn’t know,” he said, “the rest of the country is just picturing a whole in the ground, a crater, utter destruction.”  No, I said,  That’s not true at all!  There are 58 stories—there is progress, real progress!

After everything we’ve been through, am I still in love with the city that has sheltered me for the past ten years?  And can you even be in love with a city—real, complex, complicated love?  Absofuckinglutely.

Emily Sproch is a writer and a “Sex and the City” tour guide.  Each Friday, she chronicles the fine line between reality and fiction in her column “Almost Carrie.”