Gemma Hartley

Did you read “gymnastics for grown-ass adults” and get real excited? Like, where can I find this? How can I do this? This sounds awesome! 

I spent most of my life assuming I was an introvert, but not a very good one. Then finding out I'm an ambivert totally changed my life!

But I was yet to face the cold, hard fact that my lack of acceptance for my own body, was really a lack of acceptance for all the bodies I had falsely embraced for so long. Could I really love someone else’s ample stomach, when I could not love my own?

We are often so focused on what we say to girls, that we forget the impact our words have on our boys. One flippant mention of my son’s “skinny” figure has turned into a source of unnecessary turmoil for him, and has lead to this difficult but important conversation about body image.

Last week, the internet went into an understandable uproar when a Christian woman decided to take to Facebook to talk about how she is

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.

...[M]en get a lot of praise for the “extra-credit work” they do in regards to domestic labor (the actual house cleaning and keeping work) and emotional labor (the invisible work that ensures the rest gets done) no matter what day of the year.

Getting pregnant after postpartum depression may have stolen a lot from me, but it gave me a lot more.

I was constantly on the defense, prepared to fight for my young love against those who thought I wasn’t ready for marriage. It pains me to say it, but in a way, they were right after all. There were things I was missing out on by marrying young, things I didn’t even realize I was missing until it was too late.

I went on to drink a small glass of wine or two per week throughout my pregnancy once I got over the initial shock of it being unplanned. Once I had adjusted to the fact that I was going to bring another baby into the world, I was still overwhelmed by the stress it brought on. I had suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of my son and we had decided not to have any more children. I didn't want the risks or the horrible anxiety that came with pregnancy. Yet here I was, facing all that uncertainty again. Damn right I needed a drink.