hidden.

Despite being invited into my high school for the JROTC Program, I had no interest in joining the Armed Forces. Being a member of the military only appealed in the ability to travel on someone else’s currency. Alas, the rigid way one is required to make their bed made joining this government entity less of a possible income stream and more of a nuance to my high school experience. I actively asked my principal to switch to the business track solely for the typing courses. But there are other aspects of service to the public that I want to address in this essay.

In my state, serving in the government is pitched as a safe bet as the application process is arduous at best but once you are in, it hard to be kicked out unless you are openly violent or incompetent. I had a brush with the government-like work environment when I worked at the library. That organization was one of the oldest public spaces that did not require a rigorous application to be invited into its employment. In the beginning, I enjoyed the backroom access to the books of the world being sent to my place of employment. Alas, the inability to grow in the organization or have some way to grow in the space made many of its employees complacent. And for the people serving on my floor, a bit bitter about the arrangement when it was examined.

I did not enjoy my experience after a few months in that space. I liked the ability to do my work quickly but loathe an idle hand in a non-profit business. I strongly feel while one should get paid a living wage, keeping people in a 40-hour workweek when the work can be done in 20, is detrimental to both the employee and employer. Such long stretches of idleness breeds the resentment of time wasted. Book collectors are not doctors or security. Being alert in the role and not doing anything is not a successful accomplishment like it would be in the aforementioned professions. Instead, it creates a place of pettiness and hoarding of knowledge to stay relevant.

I ended up being laid off from this place. Not because I was bad at my work. It is more that I refused to play into the complacency of the role. It also did not help that the road to unemployment and going to work was $300. So when I was let go, I was grateful. Being grateful worked in my favor. I would never return to that location despite being approached as an option. (Also, I am destined to stay on the West Coast.). But this brush with this kind of arrangement made me recall why I am for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell laws until the Armed Forces eradicates its sexist dogma.

While I am open about my sexual orientation, I was also in a space where that put people off of me in the first place. Talking about my experiences would not get me fired but it made me hard to take from some people that grew to hate me in that space. I will never forget the recruiters that came into my high school classroom extolling the virtues of the Armed Forces once you passed the six-week initiation work. I recall the hesitancy of my first girlfriend who was openly gay but no one was able to say anything unless they caught her kissing me or any other woman. The pressure of that silence hindered her relationship with me in some capacity.

Speaking to a member of the leather community who was versed in the subculture of queer people in the Armed Forces, the hanky code comes from this world of silent awareness. He informed me that some of the acts in the leather and kink community were driven by the need to stay silent paired with the limited ability to be in a safe place to explore their desires. This kind of restriction enhances the need in some and will encourage one to act irrationally or irresponsibly. I am sure for some, the restraints may have offered some people the time to reflect on their actions and choose to be careful or not act on their desires at all.

It is a problem and a weight on an individual to be required to hide what is natural in their journey. I feel that on occasion as I embraced my awakening and the awareness of the divine realm. It is difficult to explain to some people who do not believe but I choose to try to make them see in some capacity when I take the title of witch as my spiritual identity.