Welcome to the Middle Layer

Too many times in my life I have had the same conversation:

Person: What are you passionate about?

Me: I love to write. I’ve been a writer my entire life. 

Person: Oh? What do you write? Poetry? Short stories?

Me: Well, It’s mostly personal observations, journaling, telling my stories… blogging in a way. I’ve got a footlocker in my closet with everything I’ve written going back to about age 9. I mean… everything before the digital copy. I had a piece picked up by The Stars and Stripes, another Op Ed in the newspaper where I lived in Texas and a site featured something on their front page once. It was titled “Toilet Paper…” 

Person: Cool! So you have a blog?

Me: Um, I post things on my Facebook page sometimes.

Person: You should start a blog. Everyone has a blog now. I know somebody who was paid for their blogging…

The last time I had this conversation something twitched in me and I told The Mr. I was ready to start my blog. As the logistics man, he started doing the leg work and asking me questions about what I wanted it to look like. Once again I hit a stumbling block. What do I call it? How do I describe all the random things I write about? Which stories can I tell and which ones do I have to censor? Or if I decide to just go all out open book, how do I protect the real life things that could cause judgment, or worse; job related concerns? I have no political aspirations and every time I take my clothes off in front of a camera I reinforce that. The Mr. on the other hand, has a job involving… stuff... in an environment wrought with political BS. So if I talk about OUR life I am in danger of someone connecting the dots and my desire to share my stories with others could do more than cause a drama llama to wander in on us. It’s an issue bigger than the threat of cyber trolls passing judgment from their little worlds.  

But I think I have to just trust the Universe and my track record of always being rewarded for always being my genuine, uncensored, unfiltered self. A dear friend from childhood gave me the best compliment imaginable about my writing. She said: 

“That's what is so great about your writing. You tap into the things that are gagged and hog-tied by the collective subconscious and you free them for the world to see. No matter how few people know about your blog, and whether or not any of your friends have access to it, I predict that it will be successful!”

So, welcome to the Middle Layer. The filling in the middle is almost as delicious as the icing on top!* (Something else that friend of mine said, and gave me permission to plagiarize!) 

The Middle Layer is where I live… In between the extremes, without a label that fits. We are too weird for the normal and too normal for the weird. I’m too small to be fetishized as a fat girl, but I am too fluffy to be looked at as thin. I do nude photo shoots in this state and despite the positive feedback, I am constantly looking in the mirror wishing there was a magic pill that would melt away the back fat I’ve accumulated over recent years. I’m too lazy to really get motivated to work out, and at the same time the fear of the pain I’ve experienced recently coming back remains, even on the days when the lazy wears down. I am too young to feel this old, but not young enough to want to be trendy and stylish as the “culture” around me is appalling both in fashion and in behaviors.

We are not polyamorous, we are not swingers. The closest term I’ve heard so far is “monogamous with guest stars.” But even that implies a certain level of detachment to the other party we get naked with together. It is this weird middle ground between the things that make sense in the “normal world” where our special flavor of weird is exactly what we both crave. 

As for the reference to cake (middle layer, not middle ground, middle turf, or middle of the road for example) – Cake is a nickname I was given years ago that seems to make sense of the way my world works. It’s a reference to the old adage that one wants to “Have their cake and eat it too” in a way.   But I'll get to that story another time...