During the original run of HBO’s iconic “Sex and the City,” you could buy a T-shirt specifying who of the show’s central friend group you most identified with. Were you a Samantha, a Miranda, a Charlotte or a Carrie?

I was the latter, a quirky, wild-haired, dreamy-eyed newspaper columnist who sometimes made the wrong decisions, but did it with passion and in the messy but always worthy pursuit of “ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.”

I didn’t live in a light-filled New York apartment full of shoes I couldn’t possibly afford. But across the original series and two movies, I found something aspirational about the fashion, the hot spot-hopping and mostly how Carrie and company navigated life together looking for that happy ever after.

When “And Just Like That…” debuted a year after pandemic lockdown, it seemed like a gift — a much-needed check-in with old pals we’d been missing as we all traversed the uncertainty of middle age. The reboot would surely be glossier, with better skin care and homes, but I was ready. It’s not often that women my age get to see themselves centered on-screen, and we deserve that.

But what the hell was this?

Instead of a reunion, the show went for a reinvention. They shoehorned in a new group of diverse friends and lovers, perhaps as a reaction to the original’s monochromatic nature and the realities of 2020 racial awareness. I liked the idea, but the writers didn’t organically weave those characters into the series.

Meanwhile, our old friends were unrecognizable, and it wasn’t just the facial filler. Where was the girl group that had thrilled, frustrated and endeared me? I, of course, am not the same person at 54 that I was at 33, when the show‘s last episode aired in 2004. I’m older, fluffier around the middle and asleep on the couch around the time Carrie and friends used to go drinking.

But I had looked forward to seeing how these well-established characters we met in the late ’90s were handling the realities of aging, and reconciling their fun 30s with their 50s and 60s. Instead, they were shells of their former selves who not only didn’t seem like themselves, but didn’t always seem to like each other.

The strong friendship and the fun was gone. I thought the point of this was the sprinkle of fantasy, even when dusted over more flab and fiber supplements. If I wanted to be depressed, I’d look at my 401(k).

Sharp-witted attorney Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) was now at a realistic crossroads in her marriage, mothering and sexual identity, but came across as a floundering idiot. Sweet, smart Charlotte (Kristin Davis) was a shrill joke beset by an ungrateful family. At least Samantha was still fabulous but somewhere off-screen in London (allowing actress Kim Cattrall not to be involved with any of this nonsense).

But it was my beloved Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) who was the most disappointing. I initially related to her sudden widowhood when Big (Chris Noth), the formerly ungettable love of her life, dropped dead in the first episode. I got that she didn’t know who to be, or even where to live, eventually landing back in her familiar, tiny, single girl studio. But our former free spirit, whose pluckiness was partially due to chasing career heights and a steady paycheck, was now a rich, judgmental widow who’d lost her spark. Even when I was hiding in a corner crying into a cocktail at the height of my grief, I was still me.

I’d hoped that as Carrie healed, the show would have her tentatively but beautifully hitting the 50-something New York dating scene. We’d see the contrast between her free-flying younger days full of hot weirdos she gave funny nicknames to with the waning wall of widowed dudes, divorcees and whatever’s left.

Instead, after one fling with her podcast producer that we didn’t get to see much of, “And Just Like That…” threw Carrie back together with her long-ago boyfriend Aidan (John Corbett), now a dour scold with impossible standards. We were robbed of seeing who this Carrie would have become because she was too busy trying to figure out how to fit her old dreams, love and emotions into this new reality. Diving back into a relationship with Aidan was a grief response, but weirdly, the writers barely mention Big again after that scene where Carrie wonders if maybe he was a mistake. Sacrilege.

Just as fans got really sick of this, with many openly admitting they mostly hate-watch the show, the darnedest thing happened: it got good! In the last few episodes, Carrie blinked Aidan back to whatever aging hipster cornfield from which he came and pursued a connection with a fellow writer, Miranda settled into a real relationship with an equally flawed but grown-up woman, and Charlotte, still a mess, at least got to yell at her kids.

And just like that, we got what we’d hoped for: the chance to see our old friends age and change, together. Of course, that’s when it was announced the show was ending. That’s a bummer. Giving us a glimpse of what we could have had before ripping it away just seems cruel.

I have no idea what will happen to Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte in Thursday night’s series finale. But I can tell you what the women on the original run meant to me as a young professional and the version of them I wish the reboot had explored.

At their core, they were relatable, fallible and familiar. I am sad they weren’t allowed to be that, fully, as they aged. Aging is a blessing — to look at old photos of yourself in shorter dresses and terrifying heels with your life ahead of you, and then be grateful for who you’ve become.

I loved those ladies, and however their stories end, I’ll miss them. The real them.