As I stand in front of the full length mirror, looking at my image, the image of a blossoming 16 year old girl in a plain, pale dress, the gravity of the moment hits me three fold.  One, I am looking in a mirror admiring myself, full of pride, a big no, no.  Two, it is the first day of high school.  And three, I can see my bare ankles.  Why, you ask are any of these events cataclysmic?  To answer this I must digress to events that led me to this moment.  Im Amish, or was Amish up until this summer.  I might even still be Amish; Im really just not quite sure.  My father and I just moved; crazy times.  I can tell you we were members of the Swartzentruber Amish, considered ultra conservative even by Amish standards.  Where others could use electricity from time to time, we were not even allowed the use of battery lights.   Our ordnung, or rules of our order, were so strict, I am pretty sure for every question you could think of, that started with, Can you ..?   The answer would be, NO!.  

Anyway, my father did the unthinkable, he just up and quit.  Of course, he didnt just up and quit, even though I just said it.  Again, I should digress further.

Just over two years ago my mother passed away.  I was devastated, still am.  But, my up-bringing and beliefs allowed me to find comfort that seemed to elude my father.    He just couldnt accept her death and he became angry.  Angry at the others who tried to console him, but mainly he was angry at God.   We were an odd family to begin with.  First, there were just the three of us all along.  Others had up to ten or eleven kids but not us.  Mother said after me, she was unable to conceive anymore.  I always felt a bit guilty, but not for hurting my mother but for being secretly happy that I was always going to be an only child.  I am sure these thoughts were a sin.  Secondly, we had no extended family in the order.  My father joined when he was a young man, just after Vietnam; disillusioned with what the outside world, the Englishers, were doing with technology.  Pure evil he would often say.  It took many years for him to be accepted, but he finally was, and this is where he had been every since.  But we were very happy.  After her death, father tried to maintain his composure, just going through the motions; milking cows, farming crops while I took over all of mothers duties.   Having just finished 8^th grade, I was now finished with my formal education.   Mother secretly had always wanted more for me.   We would talk quietly, giggle filled whispers of a future we both knew was nothing more than a fantasy.   The outside world didnt help.  Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in 1972 in Wisconsin V. Yoder, the elders now had the constitution on their side for not allowing me to further my education.   Sometimes, I longed to be an Englisher.   I think my mother did too.   But, my father was always so strict, neither of us would ever say a word.   When mother took ill and all the old treatments didnt work, father finally rode horseback to a neighbor's, four miles in a blizzard to use a phone.   He said since it was going to be a conversation of purpose he would be allowed to do so.  But it was all too late.  By the time a regular doctor got to see mother, the pneumonia had taken her life.   Thats when father started doubting it all.  Like I said earlier, father played the part for nearly a year longer before it all fell apart.   We have a word for when teenagers sow their wild oats know as rumm-shpinga, or run-around.   Except, it wasnt a teenage rumm-shpinga but a middle-age-crisis rumm-shpinga.  Father sold it all, saying everything on the farm reminded him of my mother, bought a car, a cell phone, a carton of Marlboros, packed our belongings and we left.