And Just Like That

I'm not Ashamed of my Guilty Pleasure

So, I never really watched Sex and the City when it aired.
I only caught episodes while babysitting for the Imhoffs in Connecticut, back when HBO felt like something only rich people had — not something a disabled cancer patient like me could stream on a phone.

And by the time I could stream the whole thing… let’s just say it didn’t age well.

Still, I found myself watching every episode of And Just Like That.
Not because it’s good (it’s not), but because I wanted to.
And finally, I’m not even ashamed.

Yes, the show is a minefield — ableism, ageism, racism, misogyny, capitalism, you name it.
But it also, oddly, gave me something real this season.
(This is where, if you watch the show, you stop reading — because it’s full of spoilers.)

In what I think is the finale, Carrie and Aiden finally break up (again).

Not because they hate each other.
Not because one of them messed up.
But because life — messy, heavy, truthful life — made it clear (for the last time, hopefully): they just don’t fit.

That moment hit harder than I expected.

Carrie, still grieving Big — her husband who died on a Peloton — reaches back to Aiden, her “maybe” guy from before.
They rekindle. It’s fun. It's romantic. She even tells her friend the sex is better than it ever was with Big.

But eventually, they face the truth:
The past can’t save the present.
Love alone isn’t always enough.

And then there’s Samantha — the once-central friend, now vanished due to off-screen drama.
Written out with a single line: a friendship that can’t go back to the way it was.

Another love story.
Another goodbye.

It all feels — maybe for the very first time with this soap opera — honest.

Because I’ve done that too.
Reached back.
Tried to recapture something from before the big pain.
Before the diagnosis.
Before the shift.

Here’s what I know now:

I can go home again.
But it’s never the same.
(Maybe except returning to Hermit Island in Maine — but that’s another story.)

Not because I did it wrong.
(Though, often, I did — because it was the only way I knew how.)
But because time keeps moving.
People change.
And the only things that are real are people and time.

And just like that,
I finally got more than I ever wanted from a guilty pleasure.
I got a reflection (a validation, even) of what I already knew to be true.

Carrie made bank writing about her life. I write about mine, just with more cancer and less couture. If you’re in a spot to subscribe (free or paid), that would be, as Samantha might say, fantastic.