Security Misclosures

On job three since 2019. The last two were fully remote, and this one is hybrid 1-2 times a week.
-“Baseline Certainties”, 09/07/2024

Please remember to drop your regalia back to the regalia room.
– most recent #spamadvice

My current job came with an unexpected upgrade in security clearance. For years, I had been content treading water in the Public Trust end of the pool, with no desire to subject myself to a more thorough investigation. Not that I thought I had anything to worry about; I addressed two of the three red flags that came up during my post-Snowden interview by getting a Facebook account and resolving to say “adultery” the next time a clearance interviewer asked me about the cause of my mother and biological father’s divorce (“irreconcilable differences” wasn’t an acceptable answer).

However, there was nothing I could do about the interviewer’s questioning my lack of interaction with my biological father from ages three to 36 and every year since then. This fact cannot be reframed, and I do not intend to try to change it, even if I had the opportunity.

When I combed public records to get the additional information I needed for my security update, I discovered that my sister and I had silently lost our dad (my mother’s second husband). He faded from our lives after their divorce but occasionally re-emerged for holidays and special events.

He passed away during the pandemic. At the time, he lived a few streets away from my sister’s ex-in-laws in the same city where one of her sons lived. His obituary ran in that city newspaper and was republished in our hometown ones, but whoever wrote it hadn’t gotten the spelling of my sister’s first name right and didn’t know her last name. Otherwise, I’m sure someone would have noticed it and would have shared it with her on Facebook.

I wasn’t mentioned, even misspelled. This didn’t shock me; it was just additional confirmation that Mom’s cherished ThouShaltNotQuestionAndYouMustRepeatLikeScripture story of one-sided irreconcilable differences was just that, and it’s not acceptable for me to consider it gospel.

I never told her that I lost faith in her stories.

I don’t think I would, even if I had the chance.