Makeup……..

Yeah, as per my previous posting, I did dabble with makeup for a few years.

I liked it.

Growing up in military communities as a child can be extremely stifling.

Back in the day “queers”, “fags”, “homos”, “lezzies”, etc. were not welcome in the Canadian Armed Forces.

This was enforced by Canadian Forces Administrative Order CFAO 19-20. Yes, CFAO 19-20 was not aimed at military dependents living on the bases, but it would have affected the attitudes of our serving parents towards anyone that appeared in the slightest to be a homosexual.

And housing communities on military bases made the boring conformity of the civilian suburbs look like outright anarchy in comparison.

Yeah, I understand that out in the civilian world, makeup and dresses on boys wouldn’t have been all that tolerated, but there were glimmers of hope.

In the defence community dresses and makeup on boys would have resulted in some pretty substantial beatings and corrective measures.

CFB Downsview was probably the closet to a tolerant base that I lived on, but that was more or less due to the fact that CFB Downsview was the base where military personnel went to finish off the last few years of their career until retirement.

So, after a childhood, adolescence, and adulthood of self loathing, why did I suddenly give in to my whims starting in 2006?

Well, first I had a union job. I wouldn’t have taken a chance with my previous employers finding out about my proclivities involving makeup and dresses.

Second, some co-workers from work from different departments invited me out to a pride event.

Now, to be honest that was the only pride event that I’ve ever been to in my life. There’s just way too much in the way of alcohol indulgence at these events for me to feel comfortable. And there’s way too much social interaction. I like to be left alone. And I don’t like to be touched. I still participate in fringe events at pride outside of the main events.

Anyways, after the party and on my way home I gave my father a few phone calls. All of these calls went to voice mail. But they must have hit a nerve as Richard called me the next morning.

The last time this fucker had called me on his own initiative was back around 1996 when he called me and told me that if I helped my brother fix his car that Richard would pay me. Richard never did.

Anyways, we talked for a long time when he called.

You have to remember that this was almost 5 years before I received my social service paperwork that contained the evaluation of Richard by the psychiatrist hired by the Canadian Armed Forces which stated that Richard took no responsibility for his family, blamed other for the problems with his family, and expected others to solve the problems with his family. This paperwork also contained evaluation from Alberta Social Services that Richard lied and Richard basically had two faces depending on the situation.

So, in 2006 I was totally unarmed in my discussion with Richard.

First, I had to understand that hiring the babysitter wasn’t his fault. It was his mother’s fault that the babysitter was hired. He told her not to hire P.S., but she wouldn’t listen to him. He knew the babysitter’s name. He blurted it out himself without any prodding.

He even managed to blame me again for the abuse by telling me that I let it go on for far too long, and that because I allowed my brother to be abused by the babysitter that I was to blame for the issues my brother was having.

Richard said that all I had to do was tell him or tell Grandma and they could have stopped the abuse. But because I had allowed the abuse to go on there were some concerns that I was a pervert like the babysitter.

Second, Grandma wouldn’t have had to come raise my brother and I if our mother wasn’t a whore that would spread her legs for anyone in uniform. Yes, he actually said that. He said that our mother ran away and she abandoned us, it wasn’t his fault. She knew he had a career in the Canadian Forces and that he wouldn’t be home a lot. He had no decision in the matter, when the Canadian Forces told him to go, he had to go.

Third, he really didn’t beat me as hard as I remembered that he did when my brother took the Pontiac Chevette for a joyride. And even if Richard did go a little to far that morning it was because he was under a lot of stress at the time from work and by me not keeping my brother under control I was just making matters worse for him.

He on his own brought up the matter of the Vectrex and the laser. Said that he couldn’t understand why I got so worked up about that. School was meant to go to, sit down, shut up, and look at the blackboard, not to be a show-off, who the fuck did I honestly think that I was trying to impress.

And of course he railed on and on about how he sacrificed everything for my brother and I and that we didn’t show him the least about of respect or appreciation.

It was at that time that I had begun to realize what an asshole my father really was and how I had wanted my entire life trying to make amends with a man who only cared about himself.

Even though I realized in 2006 just how horrific Richard really was, this didn’t (and never will) erase the memories of everything that I had lived through under his roof.

The more I wore makeup and the more I switched from “men’s” clothing to “women’s” clothing and went against the conventions that society considered “normal” for the genders, the more what my father and Terry had told me as a kid came back to haunt me.

I generally stopped wearing makeup around 2012. The whole previous year of dealing with the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and the Military Police Complaints Commission sucked the fucking life right out of me.

And this was before I received a copy of the certified tribunal records in February of 2013 for my Application for Judicial Review.

Dealing with all of the stress and the lies and the intentional obfuscation pretty well killed any joy that I had with wearing makeup. I still get my nails done on occasion, but not to the extent that I used to before.

Maybe in a way my facial tattoos make up for the loss of my desire to wear makeup.

Wearing dresses and make up and my weird fashion sense have made me wonder what exactly I could have been in life had I not grown up in the circumstances that I grew up in.