The therapist opened our session by explaining the meaning of the word ‘liminal’ for almost ten minutes. I couldn’t tell if she felt this was important information for me to have – a legal separation being, fair enough, a definitively liminal period in one’s life – or if she was stalling for time, since Jon was late, and I was getting increasingly agitated looking at the clock.

Eventually I cracked, telling her that I was a graduate student, so knowing how to use the word ‘liminal’ in a sentence was one of my only concrete skills. She smiled with her lips closed and said, ‘How do you feel about your work, are you happy there?’ This is how they get you.