To all the girls and young women reading this column right now, I ask you: Where were you the first time you heard the name "Carrie Bradshaw?"She could easily be called the Jacqueline Kennedy of our time, although maybe without some of Jackie's profound refinement. She was ditzy, she was self-involved, she was fashion crazy and she was a little oblivious. At her core, Carrie Bradshaw was simply a woman.

Sex and the City has changed American culture forever. My mother has told me over and over about how, when she was my age, you didn't sit at a diner with your girlfriends and talk about sex in most explicit detail. Or, if you did, you were more than discreet about it. But thanks to Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbes, Charlotte York and Samantha Jones, we now know more about penises, orgasms, fetishes, infertility, fashion, shoes, friendship and womanhood than ever before.

Sex and the City taught me what a Cosmopolitan was, and told me why I should drink them. It taught me the value of a decidedly ugly Chanel or Dior scarf. Hell, Sex and the City taught me the value of Chanel and Dior, period. The show taught me about why I should write frivolous and somewhat introspective columns for newspapers, about why I shouldn't worry about buying a man a drink or bullying my way into his apartment, about why the Manolo Blahnik should be loved and coveted above any other shoe. The show taught me that I should have a group of girls around me, of women around me, whom I can love and trust and fight with and know and appreciate above all other women in my life. Sex and the City taught me why I shouldn't be afraid to demand an orgasm and that I have plenty of time to pursue love.

Sex and the City has become a blueprint for my generation, for all the young women my age. We have role models suddenly, role models who are flawed and imperfect and are really quite annoying at times. I live in a generation of women who will heretofore identify themselves with statements like "Oh, I'm totally Carrie," or "There's a Samantha hiding behind this Charlotte exterior!" We will look toward our Sex and the City DVDs to enlighten us as to what Miranda or Samantha would do with that "toxic bachelor" that we can't seem to shake. Well, maybe we won't, but the option will always be in the back of our mind, for when our friends fail us. Four true, solid friends simply await us in their video boxes.

I don't know if I can fully explain the effect that this television series has had on my life, and the lives of countless other girls my age. In many respects, Sex and the City simply opened my eyes to a world I didn't know existed. I was, after all, only 14 when I started watching the show. It taught me, and it taught my friends, the intricacies and delicacies of being a woman. Who knew what complicated lives awaited us? Single and working, dating and failing, searching and slowly going blind after it seems like you've dated or slept with just about every man in your neighborhood. I didn't know you could do that. Even in the liberated and independent '90's, I was still under the impression that college was the place to meet your husband. The place where you should meet your husband! To be 35 and single... I wouldn't even know where to start!

Now I do. Now all girls do. Sex and the City has helped to cast off some of the chains that Women's Lib forgot to unlock. I would prefer, when with a male partner, to have an orgasm. Say it with me: orgasm. It's not an unreasonable request. Said male partner usually takes it for granted.

But Samantha Jones made it OK for me to say it. I don't like to take no for an answer, and if I really want it, I'm gonna work to get it. Miranda Hobbes showed me how to do that without losing my feminine wiles. Sometimes I just want to be girly and silly and giggle over pink skirts in a store window. Charlotte York has left me footprints to walk in. And you want to know something? I. Love. Shoes. Just like Carrie Bradshaw.

And now it's over. Six years after its hilarious pilot, Sam, Carrie, Char and Miranda are leaving us behind. They have husbands and babies to attend to, relationships to mend and explore. They need some private time to nurture the fleeting love they finally managed to grab hold of.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll do on Sunday night when they don't make a stop in my living room, but I'll find something. Maybe I'll take their advice and start scouring the city for a man of my own. Maybe I'll sit with my girlfriends and reminisce about episodes gone by. Or maybe I'll do neither.

From the absurd to the amorous, Sex and the City had it all. Sure, it was a show about sex and love and dating as a single 30-something in New York City. But it was also a show about four women who were friends above all else, loyal to only each other. And beyond that, it was a show about being a Woman, capital "W." Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda... we will miss you.