First Post

This is the first post of my new blog. I am wanting to explore some issues in my life:

1. I love my partner. He is one of the best men in the world, a wonderful and loyal friend, and a fantastic and very involved dad. I think we basically have a pretty good relationship except in one respect. His health is poor, partly as a result of his time as a grunt in Vietnam, and as a result our sex life suffers. The quality is good, but the quantity, well, it isn't there. I have three main respones to this:

• being almost fine about it. I do other things. I stay positive. I focus on the good stuff in our relationship and in our lives together
• being somewhat disappointed, but basically okay
• and at other times, I am frustrated, sad, humiliated, angry, resentful, devastated and so dismayed at the idea that this is my sex life for ever and ever that I am almost ready to cut and run despite all the good stuff.

2. I think I have a good job. Fairly secure, good working conditions, and enough meaningful work to make me feel like I'm not completely wasting my time. But sometimes, to tell the truth, I really wonder what the hell I am doing there. I am bright - officially bright, in that I have a PhD (which I admit is not the best measure of intelligence, but is at least something). I always thought and hoped I would do something that was a real contribution to the world. And here I am, working for the government, putting up with bullshit politics, and mostly tolerating the fact that it moves at a snail's pace. We're talking glacial time here to achieve anything positive. Ice ages come and go between real achievements. So am I just wasting my life here???

3. I love my ten month old son. I went through a lot of fertility treatment to have him. In a way, its possibly a good thing my partner was infertile so that we could just acknowledge we needed the treatment, as otherwise we would have had to battle through the reality that having sex 2-3 times a year is probably not going to result in conception! But mothering sometimes is just so hard. The drudgery side of it seems endless. And our son is a donor conceived IVF baby of a Vietnam Veteran with a lot of health issues including post-combat trauma or PTSD (not to mention any of my issues!). Sometimes I just wonder how he is going to deal with all these issues.

Of course, these aren't the only issues in my life. Just the top three. I could include issues like our finances and debt levels (pitiful), my weight and my feelings about my (fat, including post-baby fat) body, my very tenuous faith and spirituality (don't get me started), but maybe these should be saved for another day, since my boy is waking up! Mummy mode calling...