Gemma Hartley

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

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.

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

I want to live my best life and, honestly, it's exhausting. Sometimes I wish I could just take a break and say I'm content with where I'm at.

How was I supposed to tell my son, who was already preoccupied and frightened by the idea of death, that his new little brother or sister was gone, that I'd had a miscarriage? I didn't know. So I lied.

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.

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.

Travelling solo for the first time allowed me to regain my sense of self outside of motherhood. It showed me that I could still be a whole and interesting person without using my kids as my stand-in.

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

I felt unique in my passion for martial arts, my affinity for Call of Duty, my go-with-the-flow attitude toward boyish adventures. I wanted to be “one of the guys,” while still retaining the distinction of my sexuality. I longed to be the quintessential cool girl — desirable yet approachable. But in retrospect, all that really amounted to internalized misogyny.