The Beard Feared

When I was in college, I had a beard. It was a very modest on, and covered only my chin. That was the only area where it grew reliably. Elsewhere it was very patchy, but in that one area it thrived to the point that I had to be careful that it didn't get caught in my winter coat's zipper. Ultimately I decided that the beard didn't suit me in that form, and as I could grow one in no other, I opted to go without a beard altogether. I decided on just a mustache, and that is where I stand now.

Recently, circumstance prevented me from shaving for a couple of days, and several days after that held no events for which I felt obligated to be clean-shaven. I decided that it would be a good time to test the waters and see if anything had changed as far as my facial hair coverage. There is always that awkward time when the beard is still coming in, and this seemed an opportune time to experience that. I could then decide at the end of the few days whether I had something worth pursuing on my hands (or, I should say, on my face).

The look of my beard only part-way towards maturity was most assuredly as awkward as one might expect. It doesn't grow terribly fast, so the daily examination of progress was a painstaking process freighted with frustration. As the days passed I wondered more and more urgently how long I might have to wait before I could see whether the beard was a viable one. Finally I just couldn't take the feel of that beard any more, and so I resolved to make an early decision.

I decided to shave. Had I considered the beard worthwhile, I would have shaved my neck and styled the rest a bit anyway, but there had been little change if any in my facial hair pattern, and I could see that I would again be left with no good areas outside of my chin. I would have to shave the whole thing, and that is a process of some difficulty. At the end of it I felt great relief to feel clean-shaven in the sectors apart from my mustache. The experiment had been a failure, albeit what one might term an interesting failure.