My REAL LIFE Sex and the City Heartbreak Moment on Carrie BradShaw’s Street

Perry Street in New York City. Photo credit: Kat OM

This piece is a little different than what I usually write about. As a life coach, I usually write about lessons on personal development in my life. But I also consider myself a storyteller. This piece is a lot more personal. This is about the time when I first moved back to New York City after going through a divorce, and started dating again. I hope you enjoy this short story from me.

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Ten Years ago, fresh from my divorce, I moved back to my hometown New York City, after living in the Midwest for 15 years. I know. It’s usually the other way around. Girls from the Midwest moving to New York City to live out their dreams. However, in my case, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, gave this New York City girl that chance. 

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Milwaukee was home base to two major retailers. Kohl’s and Bon-Ton. I worked for Bon-Ton, which was similar to Macy’s. I was very fortunate to work in Bon-Ton’s special events department. I remember my first day at Bon-Ton. Being taken around the office, which was above the main store at the Grand Avenue mall in downtown Milwaukee, and seeing three people standing in an office holding up and talking about a shoe. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. What kind of wonderland was I in? How did I not think about getting a job in corporate retail before? This was amazing!

My division coordinated events, from fashion shows, beauty events, and contests, for our 272 stores around the country. It was a fun dream job. And I was able to live out every fashion girl’s dream when our team was called to work on several fashion shows with none other than the style guru himself, Tim Gunn.
 
At the time, Project Runway was one of the hottest shows on television, and Tim its host. He was also the Chief Creative Officer for Liz Claiborne, where he traveled around the country introducing their Fall and Spring lines. We were fortunate that our stores were often chosen to host these events. Working with Tim did not disappoint. He was always the consummate professional on and off screen. Whenever job assignments came up to work with Tim, everyone’s hands went up. That wasn’t the case for every celebrity we worked with. 

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Three years later, I left Milwaukee and Bon-Ton, and returned back home to New York City due to the divorce. I eventually landed a job through friends freelancing for a special events company coordinating press events for fashion and beauty brands. My professional life came full circle when the company got a job styling the dressing room for Project Runway. I hoped to run into Tim and surprise him now that I was back and working in New York. But alas, Parson’s was closed the days we were there. And Tim? He was nowhere in sight. Obviously, I would have been more excited to see Tim than he of me, but a girl can dream, can’t she? 

Special events is hard work pulling all of the logistics and details together. It’s also hard physical work. You’re lifting heavy boxes. Hauling things around. Often in a dress and heels. It’s not uncommon to be at an event from 8 am until midnight. A successful event is when attendees don’t see the craziness behind the scenes and just have a great time.

Styling the Project Runway set make-up room with lipsticks and nail polish (you can see me in the mirror taking the photo).

The end of the day, preparing for an event usually led us back to the bosses’ office/apartment in West Village. It wasn’t unusual for a bottle of champagne to be cracked open on a job well done. The office was her apartment before she got married, and happened to be only a few doors away from the famed Carrie Bradshaw apartment on Perry Street. 
 
If it was a nice night, sometimes the girls and I would sit on the front steps and sip a bottle of Pierre. We would look over and watch the constant stream of tourists from all over the world waiting for their chance to take a photo in front of Carrie’s legendary apartment. You would hear women screaming with excitement in all different languages and accents from Italian, Spanish, and down South USA. All while laughing and striking poses. 
 
Sometimes, I would sit on the front steps looking over, thinking, “How did I get here?” Only a few years ago, I was in the living Midwest, lying in bed with a bag of Pirate Booty, watching SATC on DVD after a hard day’s work, and feeling a little homesick for New York. And now, here I am, working a few doors away from Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment. Even odder now that I am a blogger writing about it. 

One Friday night, while we were working in the apartment, getting things together for a major cosmetic brand event, I received a text. Since it was a beautiful summer evening, I had hoped it would be the guy I had been dating messaging me to get together for an impromptu dinner after work. I excitedly reached for my phone. But instead of an inviting text, I read, “You don’t know me, but you are seeing my boyfriend.” I get that cold chill that runs down your spine when you receive a text message like that. But, I brush it off as a mistake and message back, “I think you have the wrong person.” She messages back with details. Details only someone who knows him would know. I realize she has the right person. 
 
I continue working, pretending I didn’t just get this devasting text about the guy I’m crazy about. I now start receiving texts from him saying, “I know a woman texted you saying she is my girlfriend. She is someone I felt sorry for. I helped her out, and now she’s obsessed with me. Please call me as soon as you can. We need to talk.” I message back, “I can’t talk right now. I’m at work.” He writes, “Please call me as soon you get out.”
 
All I am thinking is, “Please let this job be over soon because I don’t know how much longer I can hold it together?” I’m smiling on the outside as my co-workers are laughing and cracking jokes because we’re nearing the end of this job. But inside, I’m shaking, trying to hold back the tears. 
 
About a half-hour later, the job is done. The boss asked me if I would like something to drink? I tell her, “Thanks, but I have to head out now. I’ll see you on Monday?” She smiles and says, “Yes, see you Monday.” I step outside. The evening was so perfect. One of those summer nights where the air is so still it feels like there’s no temperature at all. Couples and friends are happily walking the quaint tree-lined streets of the West Village, getting to wherever they’re going. 
 
I’m wearing my favorite denim sheath dress with spaghetti straps, a nude-colored cardigan, and strappy cork wedge heels for comfort. A perfect look to grab a bite at an outdoor café in case he called and said, “Want to grab a bite after work?” But not this night. Instead, I walk out of the apartment and onto the steps that looks just like Carrie Bradshaw’s steps a few doors away. I pull my phone out of my dress pocket. Finally free and desperate to make this phone call. My hands shake as I hit the phone icon that dials his number. 
 
He picks up right away, “Oh good, finally. Please let me explain. It’s not what you think. She’s crazy.” I cross the street to get away from the door so my co-workers can’t hear our conversation and sit on the steps of the apartment building across the street and sit there and listen to his pleas. Tears are rolling down my face. Because I know he’s lying. 
 
He begs me to come over so we can talk things out. He tells me he’s going to send a car for me. My heart wants to go and pretend this never happened, but I tell him, “No.” 

Things aren’t adding up. 
 
The next day, it’s confirmed that she is the girlfriend. I am the fling. She messaged asking if she could call me. She wanted to know the truth. So, I told her the truth about my relationship with him. I also told her how he told me she was a crazy woman who was obsessed with him. She’s devastated and in disbelief. I feel more of a sisterhood as we speak, than rivals or enemies. There are never any ill words between us. 
 
He’s texting me, “You’re the one I want to be with,” as she’s talking to me. I screenshot his messages and send them to her, so she can see for herself. But even with that, she stayed. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said to me during that call. Her “Mr. Big,” she told me. 

While I was crazy about him. He was not that Big of a deal for me. I also like dramas, but I don’t want to be in a drama. I left them to each other. This. Him. Was not worth fighting for. What would I win? A liar? A cheater? It took a lot for me to have the guts to get out of my marriage. This was not going to be my destiny. This was also not going to break me. I knew I deserved better, and that’s what was worth fighting for.

. . .

Hard to believe that was 10 years ago now. I was feeling a little nostalgic after watching And Just Like That, so I re-watched the first Sex and the City movie. The one where Carrie gets jilted by Big at their wedding. So many memories flood back in my mind. I think of who I was when I first watched the movie back in 2009. I recalled living back in Milwaukee. I was still healing and grieving after the loss of my older sister Marjoie the year before. My cheerleader. She passed unexpectedly from a diabetic-related stroke. Even though working with Tim was a highlight of that year, I was not in the best place mentally or emotionally. I was experiencing a different kind of heartache back then.
 
They cut to the scene in the movie where Carrie is in her old apartment sitting by the window typing away on her laptop. And now, memories of that night on Perry Street start flooding my mind, recalling my own Sex and the City heartbreak moment so many years ago. 

Back on screen, Carrie is devasted, and I want to reach out to tell her as a voice from the future, “Life is going to have some major ups and downs. But, it helps to shape us into who we are. You can allow it to destroy you or make you even better. I learned that someone does not define my value, I do. And whether being in a relationship or not does not define me or my worth. As for you and I? We’re going to be just fine.”

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Kat OM is a Resilient Mindset and Joy Coach based in New York City, and author of Resilient Love: Turn Your Wounds into Your Wings. You can follow Kat OM on IG: kat.om.life | FB: katOM30