Where I Lay My Head
A New Day
June 25, 1987
The sweltering beams of sun-light rapping down on the little exposed skin I had wasn't of much importance compared to the anxiety that was beginning to drown me. Every step we took led me closer to Mullica Hill and farther away from my home, which on an average day wasn't considered such a terrible thing. Mullica Hill was a nice little town where I had spent my childhood. My family's farm was located on the rural outskirts of it, and basically it was my only sense of civilization. But today was a new day, the beginning of something that would determine how the rest of my life panned out. That something was called Rumspringa.
Rumspringa is the term used to describe an Amish/Mennonite right of passage. At around the age of sixteen, Rumspringa begins for the teen at question. That teen is allowed to part from their community for a certain amount of days, for, in most cases their first time. During this time the teen doesn't live according to the laws of their religion and is encouraged to engage in rebellious behavior. It helps the teen to decide whether they want to return home and become baptized as an adult member of their church and devote the remainder of their lives to that religion, or if they want to leave their communities for good. During Rumspringa, the Amish/Mennonite can do things like have sex or take drugs with no penalty from the church, but if the teen is baptized as an adult member and then leaves, they are shunned by their family and community, no exceptions.
If you've guessed by now that I was Amish then you're correct. My father said we were Amish-Mennonites because we allowed ourselves certain luxuries that by-the-book Amish folk didn't, but I didn't see why he would think that. All I saw was that my friends in Mullica Hill, my "English" (a term used by us for non-Amish things) friends had cars instead of horses and they could watch TV while I played a game of checkers with my brother, a dirty ground as the board, and pebbles as the pieces. We had to do that in private, though, because my father called it sinful. I, knowing what I wanted and being stubborn as I was, had been doing a lot of things in the privacy away from my home since as long as I could remember. Sometimes, I went to my friend, Brittany's house in Mullica and watched TV or listened to the radio with her. My father would have tanned my ass if he knew.
All of these things and much more that I hadn't dared to experience yet would have been much better if they weren't considered my ticket to hell and a husky punishment if my parents ever found out. Thats why I had been anticipating Rumspringa for years. For once, fun would go unpunished.
Although most teens stayed close to home during Rumspringa, I had decided to visit my cousin, Cecil in Toms River upstate. Four years earlier, he had shocked my family by becoming the first one in two genarations to recede away from the community using Rumspringa. We were tight as rope before he left, but when my time came around I had only seen him once in two years.
Until 5:00 that morning, I was on the edge of my seat awaiting my journey to Toms River, but as soon as my father and I started our walk towards the bus-station reality was beginning to dawn on me-- I was taking this mile trek for what could have been the last time. In Toms River I would experience some great things, but I would also experience things so bizarre and foreign to me that I might not be able to handle so well.
That issue, though, was a few hours from then. One of my many hurdles to over come was approaching me in just minutes-- My very first ride in an automobile.
The sweltering beams of sun-light rapping down on the little exposed skin I had wasn't of much importance compared to the anxiety that was beginning to drown me. Every step we took led me closer to Mullica Hill and farther away from my home, which on an average day wasn't considered such a terrible thing. Mullica Hill was a nice little town where I had spent my childhood. My family's farm was located on the rural outskirts of it, and basically it was my only sense of civilization. But today was a new day, the beginning of something that would determine how the rest of my life panned out. That something was called Rumspringa.
Rumspringa is the term used to describe an Amish/Mennonite right of passage. At around the age of sixteen, Rumspringa begins for the teen at question. That teen is allowed to part from their community for a certain amount of days, for, in most cases their first time. During this time the teen doesn't live according to the laws of their religion and is encouraged to engage in rebellious behavior. It helps the teen to decide whether they want to return home and become baptized as an adult member of their church and devote the remainder of their lives to that religion, or if they want to leave their communities for good. During Rumspringa, the Amish/Mennonite can do things like have sex or take drugs with no penalty from the church, but if the teen is baptized as an adult member and then leaves, they are shunned by their family and community, no exceptions.
If you've guessed by now that I was Amish then you're correct. My father said we were Amish-Mennonites because we allowed ourselves certain luxuries that by-the-book Amish folk didn't, but I didn't see why he would think that. All I saw was that my friends in Mullica Hill, my "English" (a term used by us for non-Amish things) friends had cars instead of horses and they could watch TV while I played a game of checkers with my brother, a dirty ground as the board, and pebbles as the pieces. We had to do that in private, though, because my father called it sinful. I, knowing what I wanted and being stubborn as I was, had been doing a lot of things in the privacy away from my home since as long as I could remember. Sometimes, I went to my friend, Brittany's house in Mullica and watched TV or listened to the radio with her. My father would have tanned my ass if he knew.
All of these things and much more that I hadn't dared to experience yet would have been much better if they weren't considered my ticket to hell and a husky punishment if my parents ever found out. Thats why I had been anticipating Rumspringa for years. For once, fun would go unpunished.
Although most teens stayed close to home during Rumspringa, I had decided to visit my cousin, Cecil in Toms River upstate. Four years earlier, he had shocked my family by becoming the first one in two genarations to recede away from the community using Rumspringa. We were tight as rope before he left, but when my time came around I had only seen him once in two years.
Until 5:00 that morning, I was on the edge of my seat awaiting my journey to Toms River, but as soon as my father and I started our walk towards the bus-station reality was beginning to dawn on me-- I was taking this mile trek for what could have been the last time. In Toms River I would experience some great things, but I would also experience things so bizarre and foreign to me that I might not be able to handle so well.
That issue, though, was a few hours from then. One of my many hurdles to over come was approaching me in just minutes-- My very first ride in an automobile.
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I told you there was no guessing this stories quirks! Let me start out by saying, this might seem a bit far fetched to you, maybe, but it isn't to me. Where I'm from there are a lot of Amish and it's not uncommon for things like this to happen with an Amish girl and an English boy, vice versa. I know a lot about Amish, and a lot about Skid Row, so... lol, why not mash the two up in a story? Haha, anyways, I loved writing this story and am, to be frank, a bit lost now that it's finished and I can't add anything else to it! I know that Skid Row isn't the most popular band anymore, which means I probably won't get a lot of comments, but if you do read, please comment because if only five people read, and half comment, that means two or three comments for my hard work! :/ Anyways, thanks for reading and stay tuned because this story definetely gets juicier as it drags on.