Thank You Captain Kirk

Like thousands of viewers, I eagerly climbed aboard the starship Enterprise on a weekly basis. Knowing full well that I would join the crew for an adventure to a planet, a world, or a challenge I had no ability to acquire on my own. Greater than this was knowing that after 60 minutes, I would find myself safe in my own living room, experience over. My mind stretched and expanded, my emotions fluffed, taxed and strained, my imagination fed, my desire for the next episode frustrated with having to wait a week for another excursion. Over the years of 'going where no man has ever gone,' I liked defining myself as a seasoned explorer, hanging onto the couch afghan, eating popcorn. Strapped in, siblings holding me in place, left and right. Mother close by, in her own star seat.

Jettisoned some thirty years forward, I am tempted to say that I am no longer a passenger on the starship Enterprise. I am the Captain. I have taken the ship to an unknown world, and found as Captain Kirk found, strange other beings living in a curious world. As in the t.v. show, the threat has appeared, the challenge. Muscles expanded in a too tight tunic, it is mine to respond to. Finally, I have matured enough, and paid enough dues to wear the captain bar studs on my collar.

Wrong.

Over fall semester, I have found the fact of the matter: Linda, you are a passenger on a ship that is being commanded not by the competent and recognizable Captain Kirk, but by a presence at the console.
I am back far enough to look forward and sense this figure, but not close enough to assure myself that I am safe. More terrifying than this is the fact that I am no longer strapped in. I am standing. Where are the straps I ask myself as I look around the cabin? Correction. Where is the cabin? And with that question, the next follows quickly: Where am I anyway?