Dispatches from the Pit

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the La Brea Tar Pits.

Centrally located in shiny, sunny Los Angeles, these Ice Age vats of black-gray pitch emit a foul odor that would probably be more noticeable if not for the surrounding stream of gas guzzlers densifying the city’s ever-present smog. The tar pits acted as an agent of death, stopping impressive mammals like dire wolves, bison, sabertooth tigers, and mammoths in their tracks, bringing them to their knees, and stripping them to the bone. Watch the pit for long enough, and you’ll find it still bubbles now and then. It’s a reminder to passersby that, yes, it’s old, but it’s still potent.

And yet, if you forget, there are three statues of mammoths to remind you. Two of them watch from the shore as another futilely struggles against the tar, its mouth agape in horror. There’s something darkly comic about the fact that you can have a picnic near this traumatic tableau.

It reminds me a lot of my current circumstances. Meaning, it reminds me a lot of heartbreak.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) | Image Source: ShotDeck: https://shotdeck.com/assets/images/stills/MW5C504J.jpg

I’ve found that heartbreak, at least almost two weeks in, is a lot like a tar pit, except, instead of black asphalt pulling you down to the depths of despair, it’s your memories. It’s everything but your present reality. Outwardly, you’re moving along with everyone else in the present day. Inwardly, you’re drifting within this weird emotional limbo rooted in the past. It reminds me of that scene from Alice in Wonderland when Alice floats down the rabbit hole (also conveniently pit-like), surrounded by all the rabbit’s haphazardly strewn belongings. 

The Heartbreak Pit is like that, except with artifacts from your relationship. His hair that you still find in your room. The silly debates before bed. The photo strips you have to remove from frames and tuck into old journals. The bar you avoid. The comfort of his chest. The shared meals. The shared secrets. The sound of his voice. Better yet, the sound of his laugh. The dirty texts in Ubers on the way home. The dogs you see that you know he would love. Anytime you spot a deck of cards. The streets you drive by that you can’t help but transpose past late-night walks onto where you leaned on him, kissed him, hung onto him like a lifeline. The worst part is that you never know what’s going to trigger you each day, what memory is going to emerge from the shadows and suck you down. Some days, you can drive past your bar and not even realize it until you’re a few blocks away. Some days, you are bowled over with tears when you take down your string lights because you remember how he first helped you hang them.

It truly is a wild fucking trip.

“Heartbreak is a lot like a tar pit, except, instead of black asphalt pulling you down to the depths of despair, it’s everything but your present reality.”

The Heartbreak Pit sounds like the playlist you’ve curated to validate that your decision to call it now was, in fact, the right call. You turn it on as soon as you get in the car, relying on the sage, melodic advice of Taylor Swift, Amy Winehouse, Lorde, and more as much as your GPS. The Heartbreak Pit sounds like the buzz of incoming iMessage essays and circuitous conversations with friends that you commit to memory. You hope these words will eventually stick, edging out the year-long conversation you had with him, the shorthand you built, the compliments he gave, the letters he wrote. At the same time, the thought of anything about him fading is terrifying.

At your lowest moments, you turn to online articles and message boards, searching for kernels of relatability among random usernames. The Heartbreak Pit sounds like you snottily rambling to your voice note app on the drive home instead of calling him. You save the recording even though you have no intention of replaying it. You replay his old voicemails instead.

A still from When Harry Met Sally that also represents my current mental state. | When Harry Met Sally (1989) | Image Source: ShotDeck: https://shotdeck.com/assets/images/stills/WE7XZTCG.jpg

The Heartbreak Pit tastes like a premature end to dry January with a consolation cocktail from your friend. It tastes like the cheap Malbec you drink, half-buried under a blanket like you’re auditioning for a reboot of Bridget Jones’ Diary. A movie (you’re just now remembering) you showed him a little over a month ago. Fantastic.

Actually, the Heartbreak Pit doesn’t taste much like anything because your appetite is pretty shot. Honestly. You’re sustaining yourself mainly on oatmeal and a generous supply of snacks/meals from friends and family. You know this is not truly sustainable, but it’s enough for now. Post-breakup, you purchased a candy sampler from HomeGoods despite your friend’s phantom commentary ringing in your ears: “I am seriously concerned about people who buy food at HomeGoods.” Yeah, me too.

The Heartbreak Pit looks like the depression-fueled paint-by-numbers you are slowly filling in after work each night. You’re doing a good job, but you’ll probably burn or shred it later. Everything you do feels melodramatic yet also inadequate. 

The Heartbreak Pit looks like the entire season of True Detective that you binge in a week. It looks like the past texts and photos that you can’t bring yourself to delete even though he probably already has. It looks like his profile, which you regularly check even though doing so is like digital self-flagellation. It looks like an empty passenger seat. 

“When you’re in the Heartbreak Pit, everything you do feels melodramatic yet also inadequate.”

Mostly, though, the Heartbreak Pit looks like him. You find him in people you pass on the street. In unsuspecting work banter. In nightmares and imagined, kismet-fueled reunions. When you’re folding the shirt he always liked. When you catch yourself playing the games you used to play with him. When you’re sleeping on what used to be his side of the bed. In the darkest corners of the Heartbreak Pit, you find him in half-baked, vindictive revenge fantasies that you abandon as quickly as you conjure them. You’ve had flashes of anger (and rightfully so), but, for now, the sadness always wins. And it just sucks.  

Despite my best (and probably eye-roll-inducing) attempts to be witty or poetic about the above, that’s the best conclusion I keep coming back to. It just fucking sucks. I guess that’s why it feels so much like a pit. Or maybe heartbreak is more like the adult version of quicksand, squeezing all the life and light out of you. Either way, 10/10 do not recommend it.

Image Source: Meredith Brown

But the Heartbreak Pit also looks like an increasing page count. Like the start of a new journal. Like a new blog post. I mean, he did say that he was very concerned about your lack of writing.

The Heartbreak Pit also looks like throwing out the dead plants on your balcony. Like running a mile on your treadmill instead of running across town. Like catching the sunset alone at the beach. It looks like your friends, whose support has been the deciding factor in getting you through each day.

I’m still in the Heartbreak Pit. It’s sad and dark and confusing and, right now, where I feel most at home. The really annoying thing about heartbreak, especially when you experience it for the first time, is that all the clichés ring true. It’s like LA in that way.

But I don’t plan on being in the pit forever. I won’t turn into the human equivalent of the tar-trapped mammoth statue. I’m suspicious, but multiple people have told me that time heals all wounds.

But I’m going to be here for a while. And it sucks.

But it’s hopefully/probably going to be ok.

But it still sucks.

Until next time,

Meredith