A few months after moving to Sonoma — and well before the wine company finally failed, and Lou ate too many beets for dinner — I got a text from Roy.
The text just said that he would be calling me later that night, and he wanted to make sure I would be around. There was something in the subtext of his text that Roy was going to be calling me with bad news, but I resisted the urge to press him for more information. I just texted Roy back that I’d take his call whenever he had time to talk.
I clearly remember that I was kneeling on the floor in the living room of the cottage, preparing to get this small red wine stain out of the carpet when Roy’s text came in. Lou had entertained a winemaker the night before, and when the guy went to pour Lou a taste of his latest vintage, a small drip fell from the bottle onto the light-colored carpet.
I had just made myself a little potion of Tide Original mixed with warm water, and I was getting ready to attack the stain. After I replied to the text, I remember methodically pulling on my vinyl cleaning gloves before I squirted a blast of my special stain-fighting formula directly onto the stain. I rubbed the dark purple spot with a white cloth using a circular motion as the tears started to build up in my eyes.
Everything was over now.
I knew it. It was time to let go.
And, it was officially time for me to grieve another failure.
As always, the stain lifted from the carpet, and no one except for me would ever know it had existed. But I knew I’d still see that little stain in my mind. I also knew I would look at the area where that spot had been with a little bit of pride because I got the stain out! However, there would also be a part of me that was on the lookout in case a shadow of it would reappear once the carpet fully dried.
Red wine stains can be so unforgiving.
As I tipped my cleaning solution down the drain, I thought about all of the unforgiving stains writing with Sam had created in my life, and how messy I had made everything when I pursued adapting my book into a series. No matter how hard I scrubbed to get those stains out, I knew there was always going to be a remnant of something I didn’t want to be in my life hiding in the fibers. And, I knew I was still looking for those stains because I still lacked the ability to forgive myself and move on.
When I sat on the leather sofa in the living room, I finally found some courage rising up in me. I remember fixing my eyes on my extra clean carpet just before I felt myself honestly let go of Eloise and all of the hopes I had for her and for my series. I had to really let her go this time, and along with her, I felt myself letting go of all of my complicated feelings, too. I had to let the past resolve inside of me so I could stop holding onto my shame, disappointment, and truthfully, all of the irrational hopes I was investing in my future.
I had to decide to forgive myself and then believe that my forgiveness was real. And most of all, I had to believe that the stains of my past were gone for good. All that was left to do was to surrender to the end of my latest journey with Eloise by giving myself the grace that’s found in a clean break.
I recall that the sun was streaming in through my favorite window in the living room that afternoon. That window has these jenky white plantation shutters covering it, and when the slats were open, the window seemed so optimistic to me. I would always put an orchid near that window, and the blossoms absolutely thrived in the sunlight.
As I felt myself truly letting go of Eloise, a deep and very unexpected sense of relief came over me. I felt like I didn’t really know Eloise anymore, and so the person she had become drifted away from me more easily than I expected her to. A peace washed over me that Eloise wasn’t in my future. But, she wasn’t in my past either. She was wherever and I needed her to be, and in that moment, I needed to send her away so I could stand on my own for a little while.
Later, when Roy called me, I was so thankful I had started to grieve the loss of my fictional character earlier that day because grief over that seemed positively petty in light of the news Roy had to share. Ira had passed away the day before, and for Roy — and for everyone who knew Ira — the loss was incredible. Along with his passing, eleven other people just like me had to face the reality that without Ira at the helm, the future of their hopes and dreams were up in the air, too.
The fact that I had already started to release all of my hopes and dreams, and surrendered them with my first true layer of self-forgiveness, allowed me to remember that what was sad about all of this is that someone died. A real human being with a family, friends, and a place in this world was gone forever. I already understood the overwhelming vacancy of letting go of real people that you love and cherish…
