Gemma Hartley

My resolutions regularly remind me that I don’t think I am enough, just as I am. So this year, instead of focusing on habit changes, I'm more concerned with changing my perspective.

You know that annoying friend who loves to vaguebook about the woes in her life or is always complaining on social media about how her kids are destroying her home and mental health? Super annoying, right? Well, that was me — every damn day, for years.

When my son was little, I used to let him win board games a lot.

The real reason I’m worried about sending my kids to school is that I’m going to be alone. For the first time in nearly a decade. And that’s scary.

I know it won't be long until he can read the headlines before I can bury the truth. He will learn to read, and then to suffer. Words will haunt him.

My husband and I have been together for 12 years, eight of them married, four of them teenaged.

You are a professional. You want to handle your business with a certain air of sophistication. You want to tell them "f*ck no," but want to do so graciously, tactfully — you are, after all, a wordsmith.

I want to live my best life and, honestly, it's exhausting. Sometimes I wish I could just take a break and say I'm content with where I'm at.

I wish I had realized there was no such thing as being too young to have mental health issues. That there was nothing shameful about postpartum struggles.

This straggler struggle is weighing on me! That is, the struggle of having one straggler child left at home, and I’m wondering if it will ever get better.