Less than a century ago, when my Eastern European (non-eu) rural village had more than 20 people currently living in it, situated in the most remote place of mount Ograzden; still practiced an ancient, pre-Slavic ritual where they tear newborns from their mothers’ arms and left them in the freezing forest as an offer to the gods for a good year of harvest. To cheat a cursed fate, families gambled everything on a single prayer that a passing stranger might rescue the child before the wilderness claimed it. A humble shepherd answered that prayer, finding the child in the cold and adopting it as his own. That child was my grandmother. Years later by the guise of the shepherd she grew into an ethereal blonde woman, her blue eyes so piercing that locals claimed a single look could revive the most withered flowers. Years later, she had an arranged marriage with the son of her adoptive father's best friend. That son was my grandfather. He was a 5'2 chubby little crop farmer with a worsening norwood 5 hairline and was probably autistic. And here I am today, having inherited only the autism, a height of 5'3 and the norwood 5 of my grandfather and absolutely none of my grandmothers jarring beauty. I had one life, which I had never lived.

Any south slavic man as soon as they reach the ripe old age of 22