Gemma Hartley

I know it’s a lie when I tell myself that I’m “simply off” or “maybe I’m just having a few bad days” or “I’m in a funk” or “I must be upset about something, but I don’t know what.”

While the trials of caring for three small kids make it easy for jealousy to bloom, what makes stay-at-home life even harder is the lack of empathy and understanding I get for this 24/7 job. I have spent a frustrating amount of time trying to “prove my worth” to my husband.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Like many progressives, the early days of Trump's presidency have left me angry, exhausted, and fighting with strangers on Facebook.

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.

It wasn’t the name I would have picked — not originally, at least — but as days turned into weeks, it grew on me.