The year, 2003. The tenure, three months. The credentials, my vibrant personality, smile, and perfectionism. A size six squeezing into sized four American clothing, I strutted into business lunches and client meetings wearing fashion from bebe, my then choice of designer, all whilst maintaining my ferocious relationship with food.

Having earned this position for an S&P500, the same outfit for whom I worked, for the subsequent eight years, I was employed and producing. Despite my fat, despite my Bulimia, I was producing. And loving it. Working away, at the office, even on weekends, ordering in pizzas and calzones, I’d be alone. In my haven. Bingeing and purging at the office yet completing assignments, including the work of others, surprising the team on Monday with my weekend progress, I was the office angel. It wasn’t Vogue, but it was my version of it.

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Then aged 21, attending my first corporate dinner, I ordered a Piña Colada amongst a sea of aged executives. My drink order, accepted first by the wait staff, was followed by scotches, wine, and vodka concoctions, ordered by colleagues and management. Embarrassment filled my nervous body, realising that I had ordered a tropical drink meant for a Hawaiian holiday, at an upscale downtown restaurant. Racking my brain for a fix to my umbrella adorned circus show, I wondered what I could order, to eliminate all memories of this drink faux paus. What is low in calories? What shall add tipsy humour to my discussion? And what shall offer the perception of sophistication? This, mind you, was the time before google existed on mobile devices. What in tarnation is something for a skinny, fabulous girl to drink?

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The cosmopolitan. I had remembered viewing a few minutes of Sex & the City, when living with my parents, just two years before. Memories of this series, a world away from anything that I could imagine, one of alcohol, men, and thin, guided me into a perfect rebound in this social circumstance. Thus I ordered a Cosmopolitan. And my life changed forever.

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During that cold autumn, I did not report to work, for an entire one week, calling in my condition as the ‘flu.’ Breakfasts crossed the border into binges before six o’clock in the morning, and I looked terrible in my clothing. Thus I stayed at home with my donuts and Carrie Bradshaw, viewing seasons one through five in their entirety, staying in bed, all day, falling asleep to the show’s repeating chorus, awakening to the theme that had played over and over in my slumber. I was officially a Sex and the City Girl.

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If it hadn’t been for that one week holiday, spent with my new girlfriends, Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda, I do not know where I would be today. Perhaps I would not have my business, perhaps I would not be healthy, and, most importantly, perhaps I would not have my Gwendolyn.

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Carrie Bradshaw became my older sister. My friend. My inspiration. The woman who worked. The woman who dated. The woman who dressed. And the woman who, through it all, maintained a gorgeous body. She was fabulous, and I would be, too, some day.

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This post was inspired by The Coffee Addict.

When did you fall in love with Sex and the City?

© Nicole Marie Story Enterprises, LLC and nicoleandgwendolyn.com, 2011 – 2013.

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