This 1 Thing In '13 Going On 30' Is Still Too Real 20 Years Later

  (The Huffington Post) : The movie is surreal, but the pressure to figure yourself out by 30 is all too real. When you turn the big “3-0,” you are going to hear many unsolicited messages about what you should have accomplished by now.  Whether or not you ask for it, you’ll hear advice and admonishment from friends, families and pop culture about what this next decade should look like. And if you were a young millennial in the early 2000s, you likely got one of these messages of what a thirtysomething could and should be from the popular film “13 Going on 30.” In the 2004 romantic comedy, 13-year-old Jenna Rink (Christa B. Allen) makes a desperate wish to jump past the humiliation of puberty and be “30 and flirty and thriving,” which has now become the movie’s most famous line. Jenna gets what she asked for, although nothing turns out quite like she expected.  Jenna wakes up and suddenly she is 30, as portrayed by Jennifer Garner. This older Jenna has all the status markers of thirtysomething success that young Jenna wanted. She lives in a luxury apartment filled with designer shoes and clothes, she has a “big-time magazine” job, is on a first-name basis with Madonna and has a buff boyfriend who’s a professional hockey player.   But she also happens to be a “pretentious, conniving snake,” as one disgruntled colleague puts it. She is passing off a secretary’s idea as her own after firing her. She ignores professional boundaries and is having an affair with her co-worker’s husband in her office. Jenna’s ambition has made her well-known in her industry but a stranger to those her knew her growing ..