Gemma Hartley

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?

If you were to walk into my house on any given day, you wouldn’t know that I am an efficient and organized person.

Clearly, it does not take long for my over-ambition to turn me from a vision of perfection into a train wreck you can't look away from. Behold, my first week of school splendor, versus my second week of school ineptitude.

Becoming an adult didn’t magically open me up to their world and their psyche as I thought it would. Even having children of my own did little to unravel the mystery of my parents, because I wasn’t really interested in exploring honestly. I have always been concerned with who my parents were in relation to me, not who they were on their own.

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

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

Mom friends were the ones to whom you were supposed to spill all those dark parenting thoughts. I wanted that mom-magic. I knew it was out there somewhere.

At Santa Rosa Christian School, dancing was a gateway drug. The gyrating, the slow romantic swaying...

The money is great, but it is not the best part of becoming a working mom. Having my own career has shifted the power balance of my relationship.

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!