Gemma Hartley

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.

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’m not saying there is no joy to motherhood. I go through periods where I do feel like I’m at my parenting best. There are times when I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the amazing life and children I’ve been given. It can be so, so good. But what I’m saying is, it doesn’t always have to feel like that.

It probably isn’t the sort of parenting moment that is supposed to make a mother proud — the hitting, growling, and otherwise uncivilized decorum... But I couldn’t help feeling a deep satisfaction with my daughter.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.