Restless

I can hear almost everything that goes on around my floor at night. Sometimes I feel like the captain of a quietly mutinuous crew, of silently stewing sailors seeking empowerment through collective muttering. I would like to say to them that I am not against them, yet at the same time my position prevents me from being percieved as sincere.
Earlier last week, S thanked me for being a strong individual, for being able to live with those who are eager to hate me, for being able to return each day to a home that is not quite like the home I have back in Illinois. Here is a home that welcomes, repells, or doesn't care of my comings and goings.

The sea is wide and deep; we are all at the mercy of her incredible strength, fearful and secretly hateful of her power to swallow us, and thankful for the little ways in which we're able to orient ourselves successfully. For the moment that we all live together, I am a captain not because I am most familiar with her. I am a captain now because I want to tell you how I have been finding my way, and that it is possible to get lost and taken from the stable, nailed-down planks of a ship into the sea, and still come up for air. Because I want to tell you how I have come up for air, and still get lost and torn from stable, nailed-down planks of a ship into the sea. The sea is wide and deep; I have opened my eyes to stinging saline and have seen some of the possibilities that lie even in the seeming dread of being tossed overboard.