index | archives | notes Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016 8:36 a.m. << [ Family Tree ] >> I come from a long line of unhappy people. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say I came from a long line of unhappiness. I wonder how much of it was influenced by my ancestor's personalities, if any of it was at all. I wonder if the sadness used their bodies like vessels, like a parasite, moving and breathing and thinking for them. I wonder if it left them cold and dark where the viscera should have been. I wonder if it replicated inside of them, then us, like a virus. A thing I learned about epigenetics is that it's real: traumatic experiences felt by parents before having children lead to measurable, consistent differences in their children, even when the children did not experience the trauma directly. The days when I am sad for no reason, curled up wanting to die, I wonder if this could be the remnants of my mother's pain or my father's pain, or their parents' pain, or someone else's pain along the line. Even a shitty legacy is still a legacy. Maybe I should reconsider procreating. << | x | >> whatiscopyright.org