Transit and Kudos, by Rachel Cusk

Around the midpoint of my marriage (taken by my husband)

I have so much to say about Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy, and I said virtually none of it when I wrote about Outline itself and I'm afraid I don't have it in me at this moment to say it all now, and further, that I might need to go back and reread all three books to really get my thoughts together. I started Transit on Friday morning and finished it yesterday morning, and then I went right into Kudos in an attempt to keep feeling what I was feeling and also to avoid having to write about Transit right away, but now here I am not so many hours later feeling that I must write about both.

One of the things that struck me in Outline and is at least as -- if not more -- present in the subsequent books were the persistent broken relationships, and particularly divorces. (I wasn't familiar with Cusk's larger body of work, but I now know that two years before Outline she published a memoir -- Aftermath -- about her own divorce.) I found this recurring theme oddly comforting. I split up with my husband nearly 14 years ago (though our divorce was only finalized in 2018) and yet it is still a tender spot for me; one that I sometimes press to feel the tenderness. I see the end of my marriage as a personal failure, even after more than a decade of therapy and - sincerely - tremendous growth as an individual. It sounds terrible, but seeing other failed relationships makes me feel better about myself. (Though I frequently forgive others their failures, and have yet to completely forgive myself mine.)

The odd thing is, despite my continuing guilt and shame around the end of my own marriage, the idea of being married now is unimaginable to me. I have a level of freedom that has become so dear to me that I can't imagine giving it up for anyone. I understand that, in theory, the right relationship wouldn't render me unfree. But just the idea of living with a partner has become repellant to me, and the thought of negotiating and co-deciding ... it all just makes me shudder.

And, indeed, freedom was another theme that came up again and again in Transit and Kudos -- mainly, the constraints on it, and its unattainability at exactly the moment when you think you will find it. I didn't expect to find freedom after the end of my marriage. In fact, I went directly into another relationship, and the first 6 months or so after I split up with my husband were perhaps the most constrained of my adult life. I was terrified of being alone; if I had found freedom, I didn't want it. It took me several more years to be comfortable with myself and with aloneness. Maybe now I've come too far to the other side.