A little more personal than usual.

There's no reason I can't express some deep personal shit here given that I have maybe only five occasional readers. (Hi! you all.) I haven't so much taken advantage of my blog's potential for airing the personal shit, but right now I'm just feeling this odd need to spew.

I'm so discontented right now - not all the time, but right now, in this particular second. I'm a federal employee, a member of the executive branch, and I therefore cannot express much of my frustration at the current political situation. There's lots I could say but choose not to for that reason. But events right now are at a point where, in my previous life, I'd have been out marching and shouting in the streets. This job has allowed me and my family a measure of financial security and peace of mind that's never been present before. On a personal level, I've never been doing so well. But on a larger level, things feel so very precarious and full of the potential for chaos and explosive downfall. I will say nothing more specific than that, and I will not say it anywhere else but here. I feel muzzled by my job, and ethically compromised by my addiction to the security that job brings and my willingness to keep my mouth shut just to keep that job. I feel like a sellout.

And it's not like I'm even getting rich. Finally, this year so far, for the first time, I've been able to start saving a little money in addition to keeping all the bills paid. I've never, in my whole 35 years, been able to save money. I've always needed to spend every last dollar I've made just to get by. And now my husband, who I loves dearly, has made it very clear that he needs a quad (a four-wheel off road vehicle). He needs it because he needs something to do. He is a motorcycle mechanic who will no longer ride his motorcycle on the road because of the incivility and incompetency of automobile drivers who he must share the road with. Things with motors that go fast - vroom! - are part of his very soul. I knew this when I married him. I knew this when, as we had previously agreed, he quit working at the motorcycle shop to care for our child. I can see that there is a piece of his male soul that is shriveling up and dying for lack of any outlet for his visceral need for speed. He feels that he can meet that need with a quad, and that unfortunately is going to cost about $5,000, buying something used. He would much rather not trade in his motorcycle because he bought it new and paid it off and is emotionally attached to it. So just as we're starting to get ahead, I'm going to have to take some of the money I would much rather be saving towards our daughter's college education and instead spend it on 72 months of payments on a quad. I'm trying to think of it as something comparable to paying my husband a salary for the work he does caring for our child. But part of me is so incredibly frustrated. He needs this. But I still see it as a luxury item - if we're going to spend $5,000 I'd rather pay a landscaper to fix our yard so our daughter can play on grass instead of dirt, or get our crumbling oil-stained driveway repaved. I don't want to spend my money on this, but for me to tell this to my husband will sound to him like I'm saying that his emotional needs aren't a priority to me. It is - I just wish his priorities were a little less expensive.

I'm unhappy, too, that I don't have anything in my life right now except work (even though I really do love what I do and my specific job) and being a mama to my little girl (even though I truly do love that too). Whenever I'm out of work, I'm with her. He gets to go out and play softball (he's at practice right now) and soon he'll be leaving for a whole Saturday or Sunday, on a regular basis, to go down to Connecticut and go quadding with his brother who already has one and rides it regularly. My having time to do adult things on my own is not currently a priority of his. Granted, I haven't pushed the issue. I've started to lose sight of what it was that I even liked to do on my own before she was born. But I need to. I don't know who the hell I am anymore. I used to independently study Russian, but I've forgotten most of it by now. I still know some French but I've lost a lot of that too. I'd like to take classes, or join practice groups. I want to assert my right to the free time to do that. I'd also have to assert my right to some of our discretionary spending to pay for those things, which decreases the amount available to buy him a quad. That will be hard, because for him it's a deep emotional passionate need, whereas for me it's just something I find enjoyable and fun to do and achieve.

I'm just unhappy right now. Not miserable, not depressed, just feeling a little put-upon and neglected by myself. Our little girl woke a couple of times during the night and then got up too early, so she was whiny and annoying all morning and didn't even have any kisses for me to make up for it. On the days that my role as mama is more frustrating and irritating than enjoyable, it brings my feelings of discontent in other areas to the surface. But every day with a 1 1/2 year old can't be all hearts and flowers and rainbows. And I have to take off my happy-mommy rosy goggles sometimes, long enough to see the garden of my own personality withering and dying from neglect.

If anyone's out there, thanks for "listening" to me whine. I promise I'm done for now.