Editor’s Note: One of the founding writers behind the genre known as "chick lit," Jane Green now writes novels that reflect the lives of real women today, with all the trials and tribulations that come with real life: from in-laws, motherhood, midlife crises and loss, all of which are told with Green’s trademark warmth, wit and wisdom. Winner of a Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Fiction award, her tenth novel, The Beach House, is currently on the New York Times bestseller list. A native Londoner, Green now lives in Connecticut with her partner and four children.

Growing up in the hustle and bustle of central London, I spent years dreaming of moving away from the noise and the nightclubs, of swapping my car for a pickup truck, of striding around narrow country lanes surrounded by nothing much noisier than a few chickens and a couple of horses.

Seven years ago my American husband and I moved to Westport, CT. We were seduced largely by the town’s own selling point as a smallish New England town, not to mention the sweeping views of Martha’s Turkey Hill estate at the beginning of her old television show, which led us to believe we were moving to the country.

I bought a large and beautiful house backing up to the nature center and created spectacular gardens. For the last two summers, we grew all our own vegetables and cooked peach and apple cobblers with our own fruit. I started to feel this was the life I had always wanted.

Everything in my house, my garden – the haven I created for myself – (and my husband was largely unemployed during our marriage, so I will take credit, damn it) was bliss. And then I’d have to go to Main Street for something and reality would kick in: There I’d walk past scores of polished women in Seven for All Mankind jeans, diamond lamplights in their ears and the latest, hottest Chloe Paddington bag.

Everywhere I looked I saw women who were desperately trying to attain a completely unreal level of perfection: Not only did they have to be perfect (which involved gyms, designer clothes, top-of-the-line Range Rovers, or worse, those ridiculous Hummers), their lives and their children had to be perfect too.

I saw friends shepherding their children from class to class – preschool followed by music, followed by gym, followed by cooking … no downtime allowed, no space to just enjoy being a child. I saw four-year-old girls sitting next to their mothers having manicures in the nail salons, while their nine-year-old sisters feigned insouciance as they blew on their ballet-slippered nails and pulled cell phones out of the miniature Louis Vuitton purses over their shoulders.

I have to admit: For a while I tried to play the game. Because everyone else was trying to keep up with the Joneses, I thought I had to as well. We bought a bigger house, had the completely over-the-top Viking outdoor kitchen complete with double refrigerator (outside!) that was never used. I filled my closet with designer labels, and although happiest in old jeans and sweatshirts, found myself spending hours worrying about what to wear when I had to go to a charity event, or a girls’ lunch.

We threw summer parties – huge tented affairs with flowers, live music and wonderful food; elegant affairs that were more than a little pretentious.

It was exhausting, and it wasn’t me. Gradually I realized that it wasn’t making me happy; that having the latest bag, the biggest house or the best-dressed children is completely irrelevant and that what matters in life is surrounding yourself with your family and your friends – true friends. The ones you don’t have to dress up for. The ones who love you because of who you are, not who you’re trying to be.