Middle Ground…

I don’t really have a middle ground when it comes to my personality. It might be a disorder… kind of like not having a middle name… which I am sure is not a disorder, or so I hear. This lack of middle ground in my life is quite a conflicting issue for me, mainly because almost everything about my life is ‘middle':

• I go by my middle name


• I am a middle child


• Both my parents are middle children


• I like to be in the middle of everything

Ok, that list is short, but I won’t bore you with the other details (it’s either that or I can’t think of any others, so we will just go with the aforementioned excuse reason).

However, in a conversation I had yesterday, I came to a realization or epiphany of sorts. When it comes to my relationships with people and things, I don’t have this previously mentioned middle ground. The reason I call it a disorder is because I think that has to be a problem. Not that I am trying to make a mountain out of a molehill or anything, but, I am a bit of an extremist (not the adrenaline junkie addict kind) when it comes to things. I am either all in or all out.

For instance, if I am happy with you, I’m all Chatty Cathy about things and I tend to be very open in my stance and posture. I will be jovial, probably a bit annoying and overbearing I am sure, and I will try to make sure you are enjoying my company. Well, mostly, I’m sure it’s more complicated, but again, for brevity sake…

If I am not happy with you. Well, it would take a moron not to figure that out. I am cold. Like 0 Kelvin kind of cold. I won’t look at you in the face, and I will do everything to avoid eye contact. I won’t talk to you and if I do, it is in short sentences consisting of one or two words (if I could get away with fewer, like grunts or what not, I will). My wife says I go into ‘Harley’ mode. Harley was our beagle that we owned and when she was upset she would sit away from you and turn her back to you, it was pretty funny. Well, when she did it… not so much when I do it.

That’s it. Just those two areas. I’m either ok with you, or I’m not.

There is a third area, but it’s not a middle ground, it’s more like limbo. See, if you are in limbo, it’s because I don’t think about you. That’s not a bad thing, it’s also not a good thing. It just means that you are not a forethought in my life at the moment. A good for instance is a friend I go to lunch with. It’s been since January since we have gotten together. I’m not upset with him, I just have a bunch of homework and I tend to do that at lunch, so I don’t even think about it. Then, something happens that reminds me of him and I’m like.. oh, I need to contact him. Hopefully, I contact him before he slips back into limbo… hopefully.

As a caveat to all this, it takes an awful lot to get on my bad side, mainly cause I have to care enough about you that you can hurt me. So, if I am not calling you, reaching out to you, or what not… but when I see you I’m all happy-go-lucky, you’re just in limbo. For that, well, I won’t apologize, but at least now you know.

And knowing is half the battle…

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Middle Ground…

I don’t really have a middle ground when it comes to my personality. It might be a disorder… kind of like not having a middle name… which I am sure is not a disorder, or so I hear. This lack of middle ground in my life is quite a conflicting issue for me, mainly because almost everything about my life is ‘middle':

• I go by my middle name


• I am a middle child


• Both my parents are middle children


• I like to be in the middle of everything

Ok, that list is short, but I won’t bore you with the other details (it’s either that or I can’t think of any others, so we will just go with the aforementioned excuse reason).

However, in a conversation I had yesterday, I came to a realization or epiphany of sorts. When it comes to my relationships with people and things, I don’t have this previously mentioned middle ground. The reason I call it a disorder is because I think that has to be a problem. Not that I am trying to make a mountain out of a molehill or anything, but, I am a bit of an extremist (not the adrenaline junkie addict kind) when it comes to things. I am either all in or all out.

For instance, if I am happy with you, I’m all Chatty Cathy about things and I tend to be very open in my stance and posture. I will be jovial, probably a bit annoying and overbearing I am sure, and I will try to make sure you are enjoying my company. Well, mostly, I’m sure it’s more complicated, but again, for brevity sake…

If I am not happy with you. Well, it would take a moron not to figure that out. I am cold. Like 0 Kelvin kind of cold. I won’t look at you in the face, and I will do everything to avoid eye contact. I won’t talk to you and if I do, it is in short sentences consisting of one or two words (if I could get away with fewer, like grunts or what not, I will). My wife says I go into ‘Harley’ mode. Harley was our beagle that we owned and when she was upset she would sit away from you and turn her back to you, it was pretty funny. Well, when she did it… not so much when I do it.

That’s it. Just those two areas. I’m either ok with you, or I’m not.

There is a third area, but it’s not a middle ground, it’s more like limbo. See, if you are in limbo, it’s because I don’t think about you. That’s not a bad thing, it’s also not a good thing. It just means that you are not a forethought in my life at the moment. A good for instance is a friend I go to lunch with. It’s been since January since we have gotten together. I’m not upset with him, I just have a bunch of homework and I tend to do that at lunch, so I don’t even think about it. Then, something happens that reminds me of him and I’m like.. oh, I need to contact him. Hopefully, I contact him before he slips back into limbo… hopefully.

As a caveat to all this, it takes an awful lot to get on my bad side, mainly cause I have to care enough about you that you can hurt me. So, if I am not calling you, reaching out to you, or what not… but when I see you I’m all happy-go-lucky, you’re just in limbo. For that, well, I won’t apologize, but at least now you know.

And knowing is half the battle…

To Write or to Read…

It’s no surprise, I like to write. I fancy myself a bit of a story-teller. I enjoy when others enjoy what I create. A bit too much, some might say. Some. I take criticism about as well as anyone else, which is to say, I don’t mind correction, but I despise it when someone says negative things about my work.

There are times I feel more at home in front of a keyboard than I do anywhere else. Unless, of course, there are video games to be played. Then… well, the world needs to be saved, even if it is only a fake one. But I digress (a word I like to use as a way to explain my rabbit trails).

Flip that situation though, and make me the reader. Oh, that just won’t do. It’s not that I don’t like reading. I do. However, reading takes a mindset that I seem to posses in a very limited quantity. When it comes to reading, it either has to be something that catches my attention before I even start to read, or something I am required to read. As an aside, I don’t even like re-reading the stuff I write. It’s that bad. (my dislike of reading that is, not my writing. Oh, please, I hope my writing isn’t that bad.)

I think that makes me ironic. Or snobby. Or like a check valve…

So in the vein of the self diagnosis, my issue is rather one of the short attention span variety. There are times when I will be reading something and I end up in a thought that turns into another one, that trains into a few more ideas that I could incorporate into one of my stories, and two pages later, I have no idea what I just read. On top of that, because I never wrote down what I was thinking, I have lost those ideas. And now, I’m stuck with having to re-read what I just read AND not having done anything productive with my writing.

It’s the infamous Catch-22 (a book I really should read one of these days).

So, given the choice of being either a reader or a writer, I will chose writer every time.

It’s really a no-brainer.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Morton’s Fork.”

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