An Imaginary Throuple Saved My Writing Career

Let’s say throughout my twenties, all I did, literally, was write; whatever I could, in hopes my parents might read it, see me, grow up, and care. Let’s say throughout my twenties, I published three books in three genres and each time, my life got significantly worse. When book #1 came out, my father stopped speaking to me. Book #2, I remember; but I don’t want to. And by the time book #3 released, I was beginning the earth-shattering acceptance that I had to separate myself from my mother.

This is the first essay I’ve written in three years. I couldn’t stomach the thought of starting another sentence with the world “I.” So let’s say, as an essayist, memoirist, and poet, I developed an immense panic around publishing and correlated the entire process to loss; ready to quit the writing life I’d dedicated my entire adulthood to. And as a last hoorah, I did the one thing I thought I’d never do. Make shit up. I knew if I had to write, whatever I made next had to be so far removed from myself that I couldn’t even reminiscence on my own sentiments.

At the very beginnings of the story, my novel followed a family. A throuple, raising children together. I’m an only child, with no children, who lived alone and had never been in a relationship. This was good. This was perfect. I was far away. Initially, I thought the throuple would be a part of an erotic story collection, for imagination purposes. Then, I wanted it to be a romance, because money.

And then, I couldn’t get off the bedroom floor.

But I kept getting stuck. I kept thinking about love. It’s safe to say love is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to write about. Its production, but also, its indolence. Its innateness, but also its hope. I was just too cowardly to do so as myself because most of my experiences with love have been all in my head, and to hide that, I spent too much of my former writing time focusing on formulating a style. As the “I,” I didn’t wanna be seen craving. To be read needing. To be let down. Yet with fiction, I finished the first chapter like it was nothing. I read it and read it, knowing it was my favorite thing I’ve ever written.

The throuple enamored me. I loved them. I loved their kids. I loved the way they cared to touch and ask a follow up question. It was fun. I was still so far away, I thought. I floated. Nowhere to be found in the text. I deleted things. I was aggressive. I workshopped it. I made inappropriate jokes. I started over. I read seven books in a week. I saved for later. I felt almost too good.

As I got deeper into the story, a roadrunner began sprinting around my skull. The thoughts rapid fire. Every idea, brilliant. My body, perfunctory. Most days, I was up all night. Dancing; until I was soaked. My laptop in the bathroom sink. The cursor blinking. The throuple was still there, waiting on me. I was still making up. I was always up. They were happy. They had land, and horses. They were open, and actively dating. They laughed in the middle of disagreements. I rearranged my room, lifted furniture, ran up and down the stairs, cleaned down to the baseboards of my apartment, and spent all my money. On what, I couldn’t tell you.

But the throuple was thriving. I mean, they were going through something, but they were safe enough to go through it as themselves. The roadrunner sped up, and sped up. For months, I slept less than three hours a night. I saw streaks of light. I met God. So vibrant, I thought God was my grandmother. So distinct, I thought God had forgiven me. The whole time, I’d been talking to myself. But it all felt so good, to make love.

And then, I couldn’t get off the bedroom floor. I woke up one day with tears already sliding down my face. I’d brush my teeth, and before I even crossed the threshold, I’d fall to the floor until the sun went down. Months passed that way. Something was wrong. The throuple threw a fit. The throuple begged me to get up so I could pay my rent. I abandoned the throuple.

The difference between real and fake is that with fiction, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the job done. The decade plus I spent writing about myself, I had a method. A mission. I could depend on myself. To meet a deadline. To see it through. To make it all ok again. But with fiction, something had gone awry. I was moving slow. Stressed out and spiraling. Counting the steps on my stairs, my breaths, my touches. Descending into disorder. I couldn’t get up from the floor. I couldn’t reach my laptop. I’d severely isolated, deleted all my socials, and gradually stopped responding to anyone who reached out. I was paranoid; and the only time I left my apartment was on Friday mornings to buy the same five snacks that were easy to swallow so I wouldn’t starve. Deadlines passed, again. And again.

Something was very wrong. If the “I” was no longer me, why was I still there.

Something was wrong. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I dreaded daylight; my brain broken from remembering, and more than my mother and father, I took this happening as the unforgivable betrayal. My brain had been the only thing in my life I’ve ever fully trusted, and there on the floor, as it quit on me, I was beyond cruel to myself. For not being able to cope. For not being able to keep up. For not being able to take care of myself, by myself, when that had been the entire point of my pace. Having the only thing I had turn on me, turned me into someone else I’ve never met. Someone I began to hate. Someone scared. Someone trapped. Something sick.

On the ups, I tried to get the throuple to forgive me for ghosting them since I knew the real people I ghosted wouldn’t. The throuple waved and said come in. They had new things to talk about. They said start over. I scrapped it all. What I’d spent two years writing was a backstory, not a book. I changed the title. I was back on the floor. My head under the bed, but taking it one sentence at a time. When I began again, the throuple experienced a near death experience. The throuple struggled to express their grown up emotions. The throuple was grieving. I was exhausted, and ready to die. Ready to dive right off the rollercoaster since I was about to be evicted.

The throuple expanded their house. The throuple had problems with their parents. The throuple made space because they struggled to tell a truth about themselves. I wanted a do-over. To be safe enough to tell somebody I’m frozen with my head stuck under the bed. To find the language to say I know I’ll do it again, but I don’t mean it, when I disappear. I couldn’t stop crying. I cried at the blank pages. I cried as I peed and tried to shower in the sink. I cried for the fictional children. I cried, because I didn’t think my favorite character would make it to the end of the book.

In fact, I was writing towards it. Restructuring the book around it. It felt like the most responsible of conclusions; to end it. Words had dragged me through so much shit, and as I wrote the scene, I cried for the animal with my palms smacking against my forehead. Something was very wrong. If the “I” was no longer me, why was I still there.

I wrote on floors that way until somehow, it got done. I let go, finishing the book with a second set of locs, an inescapable yearning, and a treatment plan. With a correct diagnosis and a new disposition. And a few weeks ago, when one hundred copies of the throuple’s story were delivered to the door during a flash flood warning, I looked at the invisible camera. The character I wanted to kill off is a meteorologist. As I tried to lift the soaked boxes, they deteriorated in my hands. About a quarter of them were waterlogged and unrecoverable, sliding apart at the spine as I picked them up. I thought they were so beautiful. I thought I felt so new.

But looking at the crumbling, that decayed feeling came back. That palpitation of my publishing past. An alarm sounded, and I thought about how this is the first book to be published that I’m not confused about whether or not I love the people in it. My imagination, the only thing I wasn’t ashamed to let be there for me when I was alone and absent. The only thing to comfort me when I was really sick and losing everything, including my mind, and all at the same time, due to me not being able to admit it.

Whenever I think about it I still cry, but looking back, loss has always been a kind of love. A rewarding love. A sacred flight. And because I’ve made my life my life, I took my buspirone, went on a walk, and talked to myself until the ruined books no longer represented a bad omen. When I got back, I focused on what was saved, wiped residual water away, checked in with myself, and signed what was salvaged. The throuple was there with me, looking up in a love I created. They held me through my shape shift. It’s a new decade. They smiled from the other side. We laughed at the thought of it happening again. It couldn’t. There was nothing or no one left to lose.

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Good Morning Means I Love You by Kendra Allen is available from Ecco.