I'm convinced that our lives are irrevocably shaped by our childhood experiences. No amount of willpower, education, or socialization will ever do more than slightly alter the course of our lives, a course set while we were quite young.

I was born in 1965; at age four, my father enlisted in the Air Force to support his young family. My sister's birth probably had a lot to do with it. Delivering furniture wasn't much of a future for a young father but the military promised, at least, stability and surety for the future. It's funny, in the way that isn't, that during a time of societal upheaval, the Summer of Love, the Vietnam war and its protests, Woodstock, the Stonewall riots, the Civil Rights movement, the environmental movement, feminism....during all of this and into the 1980's, I grew up within a rigid and socially conservative environment known as the United States military. Specifically, I was an Air Force "brat", the child of a member of the Air Force.

How can I describe it? It was safe, safe enough, at least, growing up in military housing complexes, living on military bases. Never once do I ever recall fearing for my physical safety, overall. School existed. I never wanted for food or clothing. My parents loved me or, at least, never ignored or harmed me. What difference did I know? Yet, for all the safety, there was an undefined requirement to fit in, to conform. Rush nailed it with their song "Subdivisions". And I didn't exactly fit in, I didn't precisely conform. I wasn't cool, and I was cast out.

For starters, I was slender. Not small, not skinny, just slender. Blonde hair. Eyeglasses. I was a bookworm, and smart, sent to gifted programs, preferring to build model ships and airplanes over playing ball. I did not conform, I did not fit in (although I did have friends, I wasn't a loner). But I was different and called names because of it.

The only name that mattered then was "faggot". It was a deadly insult. I wear it with pride, now, it's what I am. Then? Well, the only thing worse than losing a fight over being called "faggot" was not fighting at all, because not fighting at all meant that you accepted the moniker, it was a label that would stick with you and follow you from one of your father's duty stations to another because the world of military brats is pretty fucking small, all told. So, I fought. A lot. Generally, I lost or it was a draw. I won often enough that the insults and threats of fights became little more than posturing, until the next duty station.

And here's the thing. I knew I was a faggot. No, I didn't understand the full implications of that word. I knew I was excited around other boys, though, and from about 11 to 13 I had five different encounters with other boys my age, basically touching, two gay boys who didn't quite know what it meant to be gay, playing some version of "doctor" they knew was both forbidden and so very, very exciting. Oh, but that oh-so-conservative military environment. Always in the background of everything I thought, said, and did was the knowledge that if I fucked up, my dad would get in trouble. I don't know how it is, now, but back in the mid-70's into the 80's if a service member's family member, spouse or whatever, got into serious trouble, the service member could be disciplined for it. Remember, this was back when the old policy of "Don't ask, don't tell" was simply "Don't".

So I didn't. Only very furtively, very infrequently, and with an abiding and foreboding sense of guilt and shame and anxiety. That's the background, the childhood experiences and upbringing that has shaped my life. I was keeping a daily journal while seeing a therapist. She recommended that I write about my life, as catharsis, as outreach....I'm mainly doing it to help create a permanent, positive narrative for myself. Having it written down makes all the progress I've made over the years seem more....real. If it seems strange that I've finally settled on this particular site, this blog, to do it, it's not, I'm comfortable with myself, now, I'm a faggot and this site suits me and so I've chosen it to reveal all.