so... we did it

I feel like I owe it to Husband to give him props for all the support he's given me in the past few months, a dark period known as LOOMING COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS/PhD APPLICATION MADNESS. In our house, we recently lived through a perfect storm of crazy, nearly four months of tears, screaming at laptops, and pacing in front of the mailbox that finally came to an end yesterday afternoon. For any graduate student, two most horrific times in your life are applying for your next program (a process I compare to standing naked in a room full of admissions officers who are poking you with sticks and telling you that you are not good enough) and taking your comprehensive exams to finish your current program (for me, this involved writing 37 pages in three days and then defending those 37 rambling pages to my unhumanly brilliant profesors). Unfortunately for me (and really, who am I kidding, for Husband), these two events happened simultaneously. Thus, the crazy.

I know its hard to believe that I would need emotional support during something like this because I am such an even-tempered, rational person, but I can honestly say that for me this has been one of the defining moments of our marriage because I don't know that I really knew what it meant to be someone's partner until Husband taught me what it means over these past few weeks. His support has been unflinching. Sometimes I imagined him standing outside our house with a shotgun to keep Those Mean People away from his wife because SHE HAS HAD ENOUGH and just needs a break already. He brought me Taco Bueno and took me to get ice cream and massaged my head when it ached, and if you know me, those things are the equivalent of a million dollars plus a really good hair day.

The real low point came a few weeks ago at my parents house. If you know me well enough to read this blog, then you probably know this story already. Even so, I feel the need to put this out there because I think sometimes we have to admit our vulnerabilities. That day at my parents' house, I had what I believe was my first clinically-diagnosable panic attack. I still had no idea if I would get into any PhD program and I was swamped with work for my exams, and then I found out that I needed to have yet another procedure on my toe which would involve NEEDLES IN MY TOE. For some reason, this new development exceeded the amount of Things I Can Handle and I absolutely lost it. I was crying hysterically and having trouble breathing and leaning over the toilet because I thought I was going to vomit, and then Husband was there. He pulled me onto the floor in his lap and held me against his chest and took long, slow breaths. Once I was breathing evenly, he just held me like a child and let me cry. I had never felt so completely torn apart, but I had also never felt so completely loved.

Thankfully, it got better in the following weeks. I was offered a spot in a PhD program with great funding and a department full of people I really like. Last week, I wrote that crazy exam over three horrific days, and yesterday I officially passed my examination defense. I called Husband on my way home and he told me to get home quick because he was on the driveway and ready to celebrate. When I got home, I actually found him streched out on the bed, and while he claimed to just be tired from his day at work, I understood that on some level he was exhausted from weeks and weeks of holding me together. I climbed into bed and burrowed into his chest and asked, "babe, are you excited its over?". His face buried deep in the pillow, I heard him offer a relieved little "Yay!".

And then, we celebrated.