" I read somewhere that a space station is always slowly falling back to earth, and that every few months or so a rocket has to be sent to push it back out again. In rather the same way, a woman is forever dragged at by an imperceptible force of biological conformism; her life is relentlessly iterative; it requires energy to keep her in orbit. Year after year she’ll do it, but if one year the rocket doesn’t come then down she’ll go. "

― Rachel Cusk , Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation