By the time I had things more-or-less “livable” in our new place in Utah, Sam and I had pretty much pushed through the last of our discussions about how to wrap up the final three scenes of the last episode in the series.
I felt good about the plot shifts I wrote into the series, and I actually remember being very motivated to finish the writing. Plus, Sam was starting to get way too busy to indulge me with his spare time — and I knew that. He was a skier, and so whenever he wasn’t working on the things in his life that paid him, he was on the slopes.
But when I was done writing the final scenes, it felt like everything with Sam came to such an abrupt ending, and suddenly, I found myself in a new kind of black hole. But what could I do? We were done. So, I sent Sam the last few scenes via email, and a couple of days later, he sent me back a short one-word email: “Good.”
I remember feeling devastated by his email.
I felt like such a fool. I realized that working on the series didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me, and I felt ashamed of myself for loving it so much. Sam was done with the experience, I assumed, and he had tossed me out so easily — just like Lou was trying to do. Here I was, still lost in a fantasy that I thought was helping me breathe. But there was no more air. Lou was telling me to leave him, and in a way, so was Sam, and the heartache that created in me felt like the deepest cut I’d ever experienced.
I kept trying to keep my feelings for Sam in perspective: we were just fiction sparing partners. Nothing more. But as things in every part of my life seemed to wither up and freeze over, I just wanted to hold on to one thing that had been making me feel warm and happy: writing about Eloise with Sam.
One thing… Is that too much to ask for?
At that time, I couldn’t truly tell anyone how much it hurt me to not have a reason to see Sam anymore. I don’t even know if I was able to truly admit that to myself! My feelings for Sam were incredibly confusing, and they were all convoluted and mixed up with shame.
We had spent so much time talking about a woman who had a conviction and a standard to not to be ruled by her fleeting desires and emotions; and, I think I always knew that part of the tension I could create in my writing was born out of an authentic tension in my own life not to betray my own convictions or commitment to my marriage. But by this time, my husband was rejecting me, and that hurt me… And Lou’s words left me feeling bewildered.
And, tempted.
I hate that part of my memories about that time. But I can’t hide from the fact that I lost my mind, and my sense of direction in every category of my life back then. I just wanted to feel something… Not something physical, but something emotional… And, warm. I wanted to feel a connection. But I was losing track of all of my honesty.
So I tried to keep getting smaller, and I really stopped eating. I had gotten very good at pushing my food around my plate when I was with other people having a meal; I’d manage to get away with only consuming a bite or two. Honestly, that feeling of emptiness was my favorite thing, and, it often made me feel like I had power over Lou to rebuff his food pushing efforts every day.
I’d eat a bite or two of a protein bar when I was truly tanking, but even that sometimes made me feel “too full,” and like I had given into something bad. If I could control my appetite, then I could control my mind. That was my strategy at least.
So, I just tried to disappear into a cold and very still place in my mind where I could think. Mostly, I thought about Sam, and how he wasn’t really the person I wanted him to be. I’d think about the things he told me about his life that often wouldn’t come up to proof.
I caught Sam in dozens of white lies and half-truths about stuff that really didn’t matter to me — but those things would often come in handy when I was trying to separate my feelings about my muse from the man I suspected he was in reality. As much as I wanted to hold on to the fiction I had created with Sam, I also knew I had the power to make Sam a villain if I needed to.
But I wrote Sam several inappropriate emails when I couldn’t contain my thoughts any longer, and all of them were way too personal. I knew that, but I was desperate to force myself to either be fully in or fully out of my fiction.
Most of my emails to him were kind of harsh, and very preachy. But others were just plain pathetic — and I’m sure they must have confused the heck out of Sam. I was losing it for sure! But all of those emails were written by a very, very broken version of me, and I was completely overcome by my emotions. I had willingly chased my hopes into a dark and dangerous forest and I couldn’t even see a shadow of my true self anymore.
