maybe my mini-vacation was a mistake

Have you ever had an emotional breakdown?  Even a small one?  Maybe you've cried with some constancy in public?  Maybe you've cried over chips at Don Pablo's? or pancakes at Cracker Barrel?   

I have done most of these things in the last year.

This weekend I met my very best friends for a 30th birthday celebration and the emotional breakdown began.

I was so, so petrified of leaving my husband for the 48 hours I was scheduled to be gone, that I was paralyzed and very nearly canceled my trip.  But because I am so, so very isolated, I decided to take a leap of faith and head out of town for a mini-vacation.

This may have been a mistake.

Yes, I had a "fun" time crying all weekend with people that are my favorite people.  Yes, I feel reconnected with several of those people.  Yes, I finally got to tell my best friend who lives less than an hour from me that she has done a horrible job supporting me in this new-found (is that hyphenated?) diagnosis and state of my marriage. 

All good things, right?

Even though I believe the experience to be the beginning of me letting go of a lot of things, I was greeted on the last morning with my friends with the knowledge that my husband had not gone to work the night before due to paralyzing panic/depression, and that he was just about to fall apart.  After listening to my wonderful husband cry off-and-on for about 15 minutes and only seem somewhat happy after talking to me, I wondered to myself if it was worth me going on this tiny vacation.

I felt as if all of my worst fears were confirmed.  I felt a tremendous sense of dread in coming home.  But you know what I don't understand about myself--I did not tell my friends what had happened.  Friends that I sat up with until 1 o'clock at night, which is REALLY late for me because my bedtime is 9:30, trying to reconcile feeling isolated and scared and trying to get rid of all of the irrational fear.

Maybe I wanted everything to be okay.  I kept telling my husband that everything would work out, and maybe I wanted to believe that myself.  Maybe everything is okay and I'm making too much out of a minor setback.  Maybe I need to relax.

But as I'm sitting here taking a break from taking care of my husband, I wonder if everything is going to be okay.  And I wonder if I will ever get to relax and enjoy my life with my wonderfully creative husband.

Yikes.  That's depressing.

I'm off to plan our summer road trip and attempt to iron out a schedule even a man with Asperger's will be happy with.