I had a weird Saturday.

We had a nice family trip to one of the local Asian supermarkets. Our goals: to find some snacks that we fondly remember from our trip to Japan last summer, and to acquire mochi donuts.

The kids and I were discussing this Asian market and how it compared to one that we had gone to in a local suburb.

“I don’t know why, but this one feels more real,” my oldest said.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I always feel a little out of place here, and that’s how I know it’s authentic.”

I got a taro-flavored mochi donut and it was delicious.

The next outing of the day was to a funeral. It was in a lovely old church that smelled properly of old stone and generations of careful care. Wooden pews and stained glass. I opened the bulletin, located the first hymn in the new red hymnal, and I was ready to go.

I was not ready to go. Guys, did you know that you can just forget how to do church if you don’t go frequently enough? I did not know this. I couldn’t remember the responses to the readings and the gospel without looking. We sang the Lord’s Prayer. Who sings the Lord’s Prayer? At one point during the preparation of communion I got extremely lost in the bulletin and just stopped trying to figure it out. I mumbled along enthusiastically, hoping to look like I fit in.

Am I bad at church now? I didn’t realize that attending a church service was a skill that I might lose. I guess I thought all the Lutheran churches would always be out there reciting the Lord’s Prayer with the word “trespasses” intact and that everyone would always sing the same version of Lamb of God as the first song during communion. How many versions of Lamb of God could there possibly be and why would anyone ever pick anything else for communion?

I felt so out of place, an obvious foreigner fumbling with the psalmody as if she’s never sung a psalm in her entire life.

The last outing of the day was to a fancy dinner with my husband’s work team. This is an annual event that I dread. What are appropriate topics of conversation when you struggle to relate to anything about another person’s life? For the most part, this is the generational wealth set: they travel internationally with their kids every year, they have never and will never set foot in a public school. Inevitably the conversation will turn to the details of a recent SEC filing and I will struggle to maintain my interest in the conversation. Even the open bar does nothing to help–I am too concerned with maintaining appropriate behavior to allow myself to imbibe much.

Usually it’s just an evening of cocktails and a buffet of heavy hors d’oeuvres, but this year it was a fancy sit-down dinner: the kind with multiple layers of utensils. Which bread plate is mine? Which water cup? Dear Lord, it’s only a matter of time before they all realize that we are frauds, raised in households that resemble the Roseanne sitcom while they just walked off the set of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Out of place.

So it was a weird Saturday indeed.