Being Carrie Bradshaw

I look out my driver's side window at the sign attached to the building. The radio is off, so the only sounds present are the machine-like hum of the neon and the gentle May breeze rustling the leaves on the scant greenery of the urban sprawl. My best friend is looking out the passenger window, apparently transfixed by similar things. I look ahead of me and there are shimmering lights as far as the eye can see. From the pinpricks of car headlights to the occasional office light still on in the impossibly tall skyscrapers, to the neon signs of various companies left on, downtown Indianapolis is aglow. The concrete jungle. It's a beautiful sight. It's hard to imagine why anyone couldn't love the city.

I love downtown Indianapolis. I don't really know why I do. I suppose it's the allure. I grew up sneaking and watching episodes of Sex and the City on HBO. Carrie and her friends ran around in $3,000 shoes and lived the life. They had fabulous everything; shoes, clothes, boyfriends, jobs, apartments. But the backdrop is what made it all the more alluring. The stories were set in New York City, a city everyone desires to live in at one point of their lives. The glittering back drop of NYC was like getting a peek into Oz for me. I can remember being a little girl, sitting close to our television set so I could keep the sound low, and promising myself that someday, I would be a writer just like Carrie. I would sit in my apartment downtown and type on my laptop (my desk would have a view of the city, of course). I would have amazing clothes and friends, and go out to eat at delicious, expensive places just like Carrie did. And most importantly, I would wear high heels Every Single Day, because my mother only allowed me to wear flats.

In my freshman college journalism class, we were asked to introduce ourselves and state our "journalistic dreams." Every kid said down things like "become the editor of the Wall Street Journal" or "become a sports broadcaster on ESPN." I proudly stood up and announced that I wanted to "write a column and be just like Carrie Bradshaw." Needless to say, I didn't last long at the IU Ernie Pyle School of Journalism. They only churn out Pulitzer prize-winning journalists, not trashy sex columnists with great shoe collections. Fine by me. I was never a color-in-the-lines type of girl, anyways. I'll blaze my own trail. I'll show them.

I don't think I'm special, or even different. I simply know how to convey my thoughts into words. It's the median in which I chose to express myself. But I love it. I have a passion, a deep, fiery burning passion that glows deeply within me. More than I've ever wanted anything in my whole entire life, I want to be a writer. My dad told me to find what you love and make a career out of it. And I can't think of anything I love more. One day. One day, I'll be there.

But for now I'll settle for flipping through the channels and finding a SATC rerun. I know it's utterly unrealistic to think that a single woman could afford to live alone in New York City in a posh apartment with a lavish designer wardrobe on a freelance writer's salary. But hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

I'm gonna keep on chugging. I'm going to finish college, get a big-girl job and start my real life. But I still want to be Carrie Bradshaw.

I'll be there one day. My name will be in lights, and I'll be a famous author. I'll wave my book in the faces of everyone who laughed at me and told me no, and every snotty, preppy sorority girl journalism major who turned her nose up at the rough-around-the-edges bitch who didn't quite fit in. I'll stomp off in my glittering pink high heels, and I'll thank Candace Bushnell. Not only for creating such an awesome character, but for giving a little girl in pajamas who watched a forbidden TV show hope, desire, and a dream she never let die.