I live inside a seashell.

I've found that there's a funny thing about not having a full sense of hearing.  It's like living in a seashell.

The chaos of the world is muffled to a calming murmur.  Sounds enter my ears, but they do so faintly and with great caution.  They sometimes swirl around, creating a hollow echo of the original.  The way that a child marvels at how a shell clings to the sounds of the shore in its memory, of the lapping waters and salty breezes of its long-gone home, is not so different from my own perception.  Unlike the child, I know that the shell doesn't really know to miss its home at all- that it is nothing but a lovely piece of calcium abandoned by a little creature.  And I know that there is nothing inherently esoteric about my situation.  My ability to live as a fully hearing person simply crawled out long ago, chased out of my ears by a double bout of scarlet fever.  But I've made a cozy space of the emptiness, and I wouldn't trade it.

I didn't choose to be here, but I've come to admire the view.