I recently started watching a show called "The Carrie Diaries" on Netflix. It is a great show to binge watch on late nights when I’m supposed to be studying. It’s the prequel to "Sex and the City," which I have never watched. "The Carrie Diaries" is about a teenage writer from Connecticut who has hopes of making it big in New York City. I connect with Carrie in a few ways as I am also an aspiring writer from Connecticut who has dreams of making it big in the city.
Carrie comes to the city to take up an internship at a law firm, but ends up interning at a fashion magazine instead. As a person who wants nothing more than to be a reporter in New York, I can understand how exciting that must be. I wish that I had Carrie’s confidence to go after her dreams. She chases them fearlessly and takes risks, makes mistakes, and is not afraid to say what she believes. I am not nearly confident enough to take even a quarter of the risks that Carrie does. Her risks generally reap rewards, however, so I should probably follow her example even if that would probably anger my parents.
But, being from Connecticut, I would assume that she would be slightly less enchanted by the city. To Carrie the city is the pinnacle of opportunity, an almost dream factory. She has an idealized vision of the City that Never Sleeps, which I find quite interesting.
I assume that Castlebury, Connecticut would be located in Fairfield County, which is closest to the city, since they say in the show that the train ride is only about an hour. Being that close it would be assumed that she would go in often and have the opportunity to see New York in a less romanticized view. I assume that she would see it as I do: in a slightly disillusioned view, but with the knowledge that New York is, in some ways, exactly where I need to end up.
For me, going into the city was a twice yearly trip at least. Being from farther in-state than Carrie it would take me much longer to get to the city, yet my ideas about New York were always less romanticized than hers even when I was younger. I do believe that dreams can come true in New York, New York, but that does not necessarily mean that they will. When I go to the city I see towering skyscrapers and dried gum, cigarette butts, and millions of pigeons and people. There are so many different kinds of people. Carrie understands that the people are what makes the city special. Without the people then the city would have no life. Carrie romanticizes the city in the way that most people do who do not live near it or like people who do not visit often. New York never ceases to amaze me, but I also understand that it is just a place. It's an interesting place, but just a place.
Now that I am going to school in the Metropolitan Area I go into the city more than ever, but I still find Carrie’s reaction to the city interesting. She looks at the city with the wonder of a child every time she goes in, looking for something new. Maybe I am too desensitized and need to expand my ideas about the city, allow myself to dream and imagine the powerful woman that I can be. I feel a draw sometimes and I know that I will end up there eventually, but it is not necessarily because of the glamour or the romantic reasons that litter New York’s image. To make it in New York takes a special kind of person. I am not that person yet. Carrie Bradshaw was already that person when she went to New York. I need to take some of her techniques and use them to become the person that I can be to become a success.
I have not yet finished the series, nor have I seen "Sex and the City," so I am not sure how things turn out for Carrie yet, but I hope that she gets a life that she enjoys and is proud of.
