Gemma Hartley

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.

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?

Making friends as a grown woman is hard. I figured out a few tips on how to set up successful one-on-one friend dates, as well as how to handle the territory of a budding platonic relationship with another woman.

Back when I had my first child, back when he was still a baby, I imagined us moving to the mountains. I was thinking about having three more kids, living off the grid, and soaking up every last bit of their wild childhood. It was a fantasy, through and through.

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!

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.

When I made the decision to become a stay-at-home mother, the choice was an easy one.

A breakup, Mom, a cheerleading competition, and Valentine's Day...

There is a time to be prudent and fair to “many sides” of an issue, but dealing with Nazis is not that time.

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!