Breaking Point

You know when you have too much on your plate, have been dealing with it for awhile, are still being hit left and right, and then one little thing finally gets you to the point of saying, enough? Well, I got there last night. I don't want to be too whiney because everyone has a life that is full of stress and makes them busy.

The breaking point came while I was sitting at my laptop last night at 10:30 trying to find a restaurant to go to for our 3 year anniversary. We aren't really doing presents this year so we've decided to go out for a super fancy meal to celebrate. As we were sitting there for over an hour, I finally reached my limit. The restaurants we (okay, I) wanted to go are all already booked up. So we settled for a very nice restaurant, L'Auberge Chez Francois. I say settled as if this restaurant is only decent. It's pretty fancy and quite expensive so I'm being a brat. The part I think that finally got to me was that I am planning our wedding, with some help from Ian (I am so grateful that he has been helpful - compared to most stories I've heard, he has done a whole lot more than most men do for their weddings), figuring out traveling plans to visit my final choices for law school, deciding on a law school, plus take care of the cooking in our household which requires lots of planning in order to cook healthy. And there I was, planning our anniversary dinner. TOO MUCH PLANNING!

I snapped. I hate when that happens, especially because I normally snap at the one person I love the most and who is there through everything, Ian. Then as soon as I've snapped, I go through that guilt period feeling like crap for how I just behaved.

I was still feeling all mopey this morning and being a complete jerk. I finally communicated what I need - a BREAK from all of this planning! I don't necessarily expect him to jump up and start planning everything for me, but cooking a meal here and there and helping me plan out grocery lists with menus once in awhile would be fantastic. I have no doubt he'll step up to the plate now that I scared him with me crazy meltdown. He's good like that:)

I then read an article from Sunday's Washington Post Magazine titled The Vow. I was so wrapped up in this story that I took it to the gym this morning to finish reading while I was biking. This story speaks of a relationship between husband and wife so different than what most people would consider a marriage to have. It's a different type of love. Dave Kendall cares for his wife, Diana, who was diagnosed with Huntington's disease. Now normally these types of stories make me sad or guilty about my own life. It speaks of how their relationship has changed, how he cares for her day in and day out, and asks some tough questions: Would you choose to marry her all over again if you'd known at the time that she had this disease? What keeps you going when you know it's downhill from here? Many people would decide that this isn't the life they agreed to when they said their vows years ago, so why do you stick around?

I find the story inspiring on so many levels. I hope to have the type of love and devotion that this couple clearly has. I hope to have a sense of humor even in the midst of what seems like a nightmare. Dave's answers are quite remarkable. But what suddenly hit me was that this man never gets a break. He cares for his wife, (mostly) with a smile on his face without ever getting a break for himself.

Suddenly, being the one to plan to plan most of our wedding, deciding on a law school, always planning and cooking our meals, or "settling" on a restaurant for our anniversary doesn't seem like such a big deal. It's not that I don't have the right to want to have a break from all of it, but at least we have a choice in getting a break from our stresses. That is what I am grateful for.

So tonight, Ian is going out with his buddies for dinner and drinks. I'm looking forward to having a "me" night with no TV, no planning or cooking dinner, and no wedding or law school thinking. I'm taking a break:)