No copyright infringement intended.

So, I jumped on the Self-Insert Bandwagon, all thanks to EmptySurface. And yes, I seem to still be alive, but sometimes I can't believe it either.

Anyway, this fic is mostly written Drabble-style, which means some chapters are short and some don't seem to end.

Hope you enjoy!

-1-

Sometimes life doesn't suck. But those moments are rare and fleeting and usually followed by generous amounts of paranoia, anxiety, or just generally shitty things.

Like. Imagine, you, a somewhat innocent, young woman of questionable intelligence manage to kill yourself by accident. Really, how should you have known that that sucky neighbor next door refuses to get up in time to sand the sidewalk? And that it would be freezing, which is not a good combination with rain.

Just. FYI.

So, slipping on ice and breaking your skull on the edge of the stairway to the entrance is not the most glorious way to go.

No, really, you say.

(It hurts a lot though.)

Further, please imagine finding yourself born again.

To parents who are better off than some others, mostly because they are so, so frugal. With everything.

Including their affection.

They dislike showing any sort of parental love unless you have managed to exceed all the expectations heaped upon you.

As if that wouldn't be bad enough, you find yourself trapped with a name that is both unwieldy, mispronounced 99% of the time, and so ridiculous one can't laugh it off anymore.

I mean. Benedikta van Wieren?

Benedikta?

Really? That's all you could come up with?

You look at your newborn child for the first time and think: "Huh, she kinda looks like my rich great-aunt from Frisia. Let's call her after that woman." (No, it has nothing to do with the fact she's got no living children of her own and hey, what a coincidence that your uncle died just a few years ago. Imagine that.)

Or maybe they just ran out of cool names after baby number one and two. No hard feelings, it happens.

By the time I'd pop out baby number five, I'd also be hard pressed to find something nice and suitable to name my child which they wouldn't hate me for in years to come.

Okay, sorry for going off-track there.

I'm Benedikta Elfrieda van Wieren, fifth child and fourth daughter of German-born parents.

Born in New York City on November 5, 1923.

Holy fuck, I'm exactly four days and two years older than my original grandmother.