Satran - 30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time Shes 30

For any woman turning thirty, remembering thirty,
or looking forward to thirty: Weve got your back.

Contents

BY GENEVIEVE FIELD

BY SLOANE CROSLEY

BY ANNE CHRISTENSEN

ILLUSTRATION BY MARY LYNN BLASUTTA

BY ZZ PACKER

BY TAYLOR SWIFT

BY AYANA BYRD

BY SUZE ORMAN

BY JACQUELYN MITCHARD

BY RACHEL ROY

BY JULIE ROTTENBERG AND ELISA ZURITSKY

BY KELLY CORRIGAN

ILLUSTRATION BY MARY LYNN BLASUTTA

BY THE EDITORS OF GLAMOUR

BY FIONA MAAZEL

BY PADMA LAKSHMI

BY ANGIE HARMON

BY KATIE COURIC

BY MELISSA DE LA CRUZ

BY RACHEL ZOE

ILLUSTRATION BY MARY LYNN BLASUTTA

BY KATHY GRIFFIN

BY THE EDITORS OF GLAMOUR

BY SANDRA LEE

BY THE EDITORS OF GLAMOUR

BY PAMELA REDMOND SATRAN

ILLUSTRATION BY MARY LYNN BLASUTTA

BY PORTIA DE ROSSI

BY LISA LING

BY LAUREN CONRAD

BY KATIE CROUCH

BY BOBBI BROWN

BY LIZ SMITH

BY THE EDITORS OF GLAMOUR

BY THE EDITORS OF GLAMOUR

BY PAMELA REDMOND SATRAN

BY MAYA ANGELOU

BY CINDI LEIVE,
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GLAMOUR

Everyone loves lists. Our human history, in fact, has been shaped by themfrom the Ten Commandments and the Ninety-Five Theses to the 282 tenets of Hammurabis Code and the thirteen Articles of Confederation. Lists give shape to a sprawling, messy world; in modern life, theres the A-list, top-ten lists, blacklists, best-dressed lists, Craigslist, bucket lists, wish lists, and that albatross of daily existence, your to-do list.

But until 1997, there was no list specifically for women (unless you count the fifteen rules for serving your husband in The Good Wifes Guide , which I dont). Thats when a Glamour columnist named Pam Satran sat down at her keyboard to write 30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time Shes 30. The List became a phenomenon, and while it may not have started a religious movement or founded a country, it actually might change your life, or at least the way you look at it.

I know it has changed mine. The month The List came out, I was a juniorish editor at Glamour , age, yes, thirty, and I remember reading the column while standing up in my office, holding the advance copy of the magazine and fully absorbed in Pams catalog of essential items. (Something to wear if the employer of my dreams wanted to see me in an hour? Had that. But how did I feel about kids? And where should I go when my soul needed soothing?) Although I could not have predicted the reader response The List would generate, I knew it spoke to meand I promptly xeroxed it for my oldest childhood friend, yet to turn thirty. I must not have remembered to send her the page, though, because a few months later, she sent The List to me in the form of a chain-mail forward, stripped of any attributionbut Pams list word for word. I love this! my friend wrote. I need a black lace bra.

As youll hear, that email forward was just one stop on The Lists ongoing viral journey around the globe. Over the past decade-plus, its been wrongly attributed to everyone from Hillary Clinton to Maya Angelou. Its been taught in classrooms and stitched onto quilts. And most important, its been read, and shared, by millionsbecause it distills the enormous, ever-changing question of how to be a happy, grown-up woman into essentials we can all check off, or at least consider.

I recently had the privilege of sitting in Carnegie Hall and watching the fabulous seventy-seven-year-old Gloria Steinem, an icon of the womens movement, receive a Lifetime Achievement honor at Glamour s Women of the Year Awards. In my generation, people thought that if you werent married before you were thirty, you were a failure, she told the audience. And now a lot of young women think that if they arent seriously successful before thirty, theyre a failure. So I want to say to you that there is life and dreams and surprises after thirtyand forty, and fifty, and sixty, and seventy-seven! Believe me, life is one long surprise. And you cant plan it, but you can prepare.

The List helps us all prepare. You might be turning thirty, as I was when I read it; you might be well past that birthday, or nowhere near. Either way, I hope the book it has spawned, full of rich observations by some of the most gifted women writers out there (including Maya Angelou herself), feeds your brain and your heart just as the original list fed mine, and then some.

Being a woman may be more complicated than ever, but DVRs and Diet Coke help. So will this book.

Happy birthday.

BY PAMELA REDMOND SATRAN,
AUTHOR OF THE 30 THINGS LIST

On my thirtieth birthday, I refused to go to my own surprise party. With a full-time job (at Glamour ) and a new baby, I was too exhausted to trek out to the restaurant where my husband had said only that we were having dinner. And my mother had recently died, leaving me not only grief-stricken but stunned by the power of my grief.

Plus, you know, I was freakin turning thirty . All I wanted to do that night was crawl into bed and not get out.

My poor husband finally broke down and confessed that all our friends were waiting to celebrate my birthday. Theyd been at the restaurant for more than an hour. Also, he argued, I was turning thirty! I deserved to have some fun!

Motivated more by shame than by any party spirit, I dried my tears, sucked it up, and wiggled into a formfitting vintage black dress that I hadnt worn since before I got pregnant. I slipped into my big-girl shoes and teetered up the street, buoyed by the prospect of turning the tables on my friends and surprising them by being unsurprised, dressed up, and ready to party.

I remember two things about that thirtieth birthday party that nearly wasnt.

The first is that I had a wonderful time. As beleaguered as I felt on so many levels, I was able to let it all go that night and revel in my friends, my neighborhood, my marriagein the adult life Id spent more than a decade building. So what that I was exhausted? I had a gorgeous baby girl and a job I loved. My adorable husband had transcended his own exhaustion to arrange this party. Yes, I was sad about my mother, but her death had brought me closer to my father and my brother, and that night my friends surrounded me with support and love.

AndIm sorry, but this element of the evening was not unimportantI fit back into that bitchin dress!!

Wearing it again made me realize that no matter how huge the changes Id been through, I was still the same person at thirty that Id been at twenty-seven and fifteen and nine. And would be (I can now attest to the truth of this) at thirty-eight and forty-four and beyond.

Turning thirty was not reaching a pinnacle, after which everything would slide downhill. That birthday was just a particularly vivid dot on the straight line of my existence.

But its true that something shifted that night.

I say that because the other thing I remember about that party is its intense Before-and-After quality.

Before was standing in my kitchen, half-dressed in my pajamas, crying, refusing to go out to dinner. And After was walking into the restaurant, wiggling my hips, throwing my arms up, and laughing.

Before was preparation: leaving home, going to college, launching a career, getting married, having a child, realizing that love might be forever but life was not. After was living with the choices Id made: that man, that child, that profession, that city, that self.