Lettre d'un jeune Amish à sa famille

Dear parents,

I hope you are all doing well and not worrying too much about me. I think you have a lot of questions. You noticed it, I didn't come back to the family home this weekend, and it saddens me a lot to say it, but I made the decision not to go back there at all. It is a personal decision, which has nothing to do with you. A loving family is the greatest thing one could have. I've always wondered where I would be without you. The support you give me, the fun times we share, the feeling of belonging to this incredible family is simply priceless.

I always believed that I belonged to the Amish community, that my place was here with you. All these rules, formalities and obligations always seemed normal to me, because I had never known anything else. Living like people did centuries ago, without cars or phones, didn't even seem like a restriction.

Since I started my Rumspringa, I ask myself a lot of questions. This period of freedom given to me allowed me to experience the real world. I discovered so many things if you knew. I listened to rock and rap, I went to see movies several times. I also learned how to use a telephone, a computer, television and I even had the opportunity to wear jeans and a pair of sneakers. I hated this feeling of not belonging to this world. As if I were a kind of time traveler who discovers extremely banal things for others. I don't blame you, after all it's not your fault. But I never want to relive what I experienced in the first days of my Rumspringa ever again. In 20 years, I want to be able to tell myself that I enjoyed life. That I traveled, met people, got tattooed, experimented with dozens of different styles. And that is not possible within the Amish community.

I love you from the bottom of my heart, but my life is not here in this community. I hope you will understand my decision. I don't want to leave you forever, but I want you to accept me as I am, because you can't change me.

...