How can we be the same person if we change so much over time? You think: We’re often so scared of how we’ll be different if we take medicine for our minds, or go to therapy, or make a major life change. And they’re all involved in a complicated dance that keeps the complexity going until that system of passing on instructions gets disrupted after too many copies and it all falters. You’re an ecosystem, a community of cells and organisms with a theory of mind bolted onto them. It just means I realize I’m going to fall.” Understanding that fact doesn’t mean I’m going to be a great climber without a rope. I know I can’t go climb a mountain without a rope, I’m going to fall.

Refusing to pass on the bad mistakes, understanding maybe you’re going to screw up something you’re responsible for, that doesn’t mean you should go do it. “People say that, but that’s some backwards-assed logic. “No.” You point a finger over the neck of the beer bottle at him. The fact that you’re scared about this, that means you’re going to be such a better parent than they were.” “Cory, you can’t think you’ll be the same people they were. “Can’t see my way to passing on the shit my parents gave to me.”

“I told myself I’d never have kids.” You look up from the brown bottle and at the thorns that twist around each other in the vines that Sienna has so carefully trained. “So what’s wrong?” Charlie asks softly, and you have to stare back at the fire to avoid the discomfort of looking at another person.

Lightning scars arm hand art