Ponies Pooping on Sidewalks and Other Ways to Tell if You’re in the Relational Abyss

Some years ago I was living in the San Juan Islands, in a relationship with my then-boyfriend from graduate school, an annoyingly handsome multi-lingual European working for the German government in West Africa. 

This meant that we were quite optimistically attempting to keep this extremely long-distance thing going between the tippy top of Washington State and…Togo. It was romantic and exciting; complicated and painful. And very expensive. I loved him very much. 

One day while I was at the library on the island, I saw he was calling, and rushed outside to answer. The sound quality was terrible, per usual, but from what I could tell he was announcing that he was headed to Portugal on holiday, again, and not, as we had discussed, figuring out a way to see each other.

It was at this moment that a shaggy brown mini-pony with a light-colored floofy mane was led nonchalantly up to the entrance of the library. Just as one would do a dog. The owner tied up the pony and headed inside. I was used to kooky island behavior, but I had yet to see this. 

The adorable and smug little pony looked irritated to have been forced to pause his stroll, and as he clattered around on his tiny hooves, proceeded to poop all over the sidewalk. The next library patron that came along then had to dodge the pony, plus a huge pile of poo. Said person must have alerted someone inside, because a few minutes later library staff came out, armed with grim looks on their faces and…paper towels. 

The scene that followed was as such: two prim ladies making valiant but vain attempts to clean up the poo, dodging the hind end of the pony as the paper towels absolutely shredded on the sidewalk, smearing poo in a wider arc and grinding it majestically into the rough concrete. 

Now. In normal times this scene of delightful mayhem would have brought such levity to my equine-loving soul that it certainly would have made my week, possibly month. I would have walked around laughing to the trees and nattering on to anyone who would listen about this absurd hilarity. 

Instead, I was glued to the spot, nothing able to penetrate the deep well of despair that extended from my heart to all other parts of my body. My eyes, two hollow pie-holes from crying and lack of sleep, oh so familiar to those in the grips of a crumbling relationship. 

I could vaguely recognize this distance from myself as if I were an outside observer. I inherently understood that it was problematic to feel nothing, but only as a murky side consideration. I couldn't spend too much time thinking about it; I had to hold together all the parts of myself lest I bleed out. 

And yet… I was holding on to this relationship. With everything I had. I had convinced myself that we could figure this conundrum out despite the fact that only one of us seemed dedicated to figuring this conundrum out. I had so completely lost touch with my previous self that I didn't recognize how far I had fallen. 

Enter: The Relational Abyss. 

Here’s the kicker. When you’re in the Relational Abyss, it’s almost impossible to recognize it. It has become your new normal, and you inched so slowly towards it that you had no idea you were even going down. While you are fairly certain that once you had slept more than three hours a night, and that at some point your friends and family had looked at you without open concern and pained faces as you defend your relationship, it’s awfully tough to recall that buoyant and light-hearted stranger. 

This abyss would present itself again about ten years later, at the tail end of my most recent relationship. There were no pooping ponies to help elucidate the situation; instead it came in the form of walking in a parade for an organization that I had co-created, marveling at how everyone around me seemed so blissfully happy, so carefree. What? How?! I spent the entire parade eyeballing each person and wondering if they felt the same panicky despair, the same hopelessness as I did; if their hearts also felt physically altered, and they were just putting on a really good show. 

And yet, somehow, I still couldn’t spot it. 

Sometimes we can only see things in hindsight. Unfortunately, the relational abyss appears to be one of those things. And make no mistake - the abyss IS necessary. Per the ol' hero's journey, everything is cyclical and thus we will need to enter the abyss in many forms throughout our lives to emerge reborn; to learn, to grow. 

But, holy hell, we stay in the Relational Abyss waaaaayyyy too long. 

We wallow. We weep. 

We let it destroy EVERYTHING. 

And for women especially, who I see freely giving their life force away; who unilaterally work to fix the thing, save the thing; willingly take all the blame; do enough emotional labor for him and you and the relationship too…golly.

It just doesn’t have to be this way. 

Whatever your version of a pooping pony or a parade is - learn to recognize the Relational Abyss more quickly. And then take the necessary, heartbreaking, critical action to save your own beautiful and worthy soul. Because you are worth it. 

P.S. Despite the very clear pony flag, it did make me more years to recognize the Relational Abyss with the German. I went to West Africa, to the very large apartment that he had chosen for us, and proceeded to figure out what my life would look like there. Spoiler alert: It didn't work out.