Gemma Hartley

I wonder because I think I'm making the same mistakes with my daughter. She hardly eats. She's very picky. I feel like food is a constant struggle between us. I also feel like it's all my fault.

Minimalism is great in concept, especially when you’re looking at someone else’s well-curated life. Declutter, simplify, own only things that bring you joy. This is all well and good for the twenty-something living in a one bedroom apartment, beholden to no one. When you’re a parent, however, minimalism gets a lot more complicated.

When I was a teenager, I felt very certain that I was not a feminist. I didn’t exactly understand the textbook definition of feminism, but I had a pretty good sense from the negative connotation I had gleaned while growing up in a narrowly Christian setting.

I am sometimes painfully envious of other (usually childless) writers who are doing the very thing I swore I would have done by now — publishing a novel.

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.

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.

Again and again I refuse to prioritize, refuse to let anything slide, at the expense of my physical and mental health.

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

Starting a new year makes me look toward the future, looking at all the choices that lay ahead of me. But it also nudges me to examine my past in a very certain way. It's the time of year I always find myself thinking about the choices I didn’t make — about the life I didn't live.