30 Things Before You're 30. Hmmmm. Not so much.

So I saw this article circulating on Pinterest.   I read it, and after spending all night reading My Year with Eleanor, I was feeling like I hadn't done what I was somehow "supposed" to do with my life in the last 30 years.

Then I started thinking.  This sucks.  People are telling me what I should do, and when.  So I made a comment on the post.  But it was too long.  And I couldn't edit it.  I just couldn't take some of these thoughts out, because, I realized as I was typing them, they are true and I believe them.  So I'm putting it here, on my blog.  That no one probably reads.  But it's out there in the cosmic at any rate.


"As far as I am concerned, this list is perfect for where it was published--Glamour. Glamour, along with a lot of other magazines aimed at women, is a magazine which is dedicated to making women forget what is really important about being a woman and focusing on things that aren't important, like lace bras, scores of boyfriends and sexual exploits, and 'finding yourself.'

A great deal of emphasis has been put on this finding yourself thing, but someone really super smart (and perfect) once said that in order to find yourself, you need to lose yourself in serving others.  It was only after I quit my job and started focusing on other people, namely my demanding children and what my husband was doing for us, that I started to realize that I didn't know who I was.  I had spent so much of my life focusing my education, my career, and how I was performing, that I didn't even know how to have fun, or what books I liked to read.  Don't get me wrong--education is so important, and I wouldn't change the years I spent in my career for anything.  I miss my career A LOT.  But it was only when I stopped focusing on myself that I was able to see myself for the first time.

I realized that I was pretty when I wanted to be, and I didn't need sexy underwear for my husband (although I have some).  I realized that I shared every single bit of myself with my husband--my email password, my bank account, and access to my voicemail.  And I realized that in sharing myself with my husband, I am fully complete and secure.  I don't care when my husband is in my email account, reads my texts, or sees my expenditures, because he knows everything anyway.

I don't think this list was meant to be taken literally, and it was printed in GLAMOUR--C'mon, people, not exactly a serious journalistic feat.  But, due to its popularity, and it giving birth to a BOOK, it is being taken seriously by a lot of women.  Unfortunately, whether this was the intent or not, women are judging themselves by these ridiculous standards.  It's sad that, after so much emphasis on being a feminist, people are still telling women who they should be, what they should be and when they should be it by.  The landscape has changed in the lat 70 years, but unfortunately, the narrative is the same."

So there.