I never thought much about my heritage. I know, at best, seven members of my extended family, and for all I know, that’s all there is of us. I’m privileged enough to have not one but two Slightly Insane Aunties, but they rarely provide me with much personal entertainment as I’ve never met the one and the other hasn’t done gone off her meds since the seventies when she got arrested for running naked through town and claiming she had magical powers.

Because I have such a small family, I never gave much thought to having roots. It seemed completely natural that my mother could switch from English to German without batting an eyelash, that I’d never tried American meatloaf and found it hilarious and disgusting that people eat it with ketchup, that my parents discussed things they didn’t want to tell us kids about in German, that we celebrated St. Nikelous Tag every December the sixth, a day when we would leave our boots outside our doors in hopes that St. Nikelous would come and actually put things in the boot (like chocolate and strawberry Bubble Yum) and hopefully not have it all tasting like our feet come morning... to me it wasn’t heritage based at all, it’s just my weird family.

So my mom puts candy in my shoes while I sleep. Like your mom is totally normal.