I have owned or cohabited, depending upon your preference, with a beard for over 6 years now. This post will be a brief history of my beard and thoughts about beards. It will probably be a several part series because that sounds more impressive.
My first attempt was a goatee lacking a moustache. Looking back at photos from the period, it was off-centre. I didn't perform basic maintainance and let it grow as it pleased. I shaved my jawline and lip as I was rebelling against my moustached father and have vowed to never grow hair above my upper lip. At the time I was very into Metal music and I guess that is where I drew my inspiration from, James Hetfield and Dimebag Darrel. My hair was also long and unkempt, left to its own devices. A traumatic experience with the local Italian barber scared me off hair grooming for the longest time.
One easter, rather than giving up chocolate or alcohol for lent, I gave up shaving. This was reneging upon my promise to never grow hair on my upper lip but it was for the Lord. After 40 days there was enough growth on the previously stark areas of skin for me to keep the thing. I cannot accurately recall if I shaved the area connecting the sideburn to the goatee, I think I did. For a long time I let the facial hair grow as it pleased, only cleaning up the edges. Trimming the moustache to length either over the mouth or to the edge of the lips was ignored. The area connecting the moustache to the goatee was the last part to grow in and runs at such an angle that it neccessitated the widening of the goatee. By this stage I had hair down to my shoulders, uncropped for roughly two years.
The changes in my appearence correlate with the insults I received. At the start of my journey I had short hair and roung glasses, the popular jeer at that time was "Harry Potter". As I reached the longer hair and moustache stage, changing my glasses to rectangular frames, the name changed into "Jesus" and sometimes "John Lennon". Undoubtably an upgrade from a fictional wizard to a potentially fictional saviour and also a talented musician. Perhaps the connotation was that they were both soap dodgers and maybe a bit preachy, I cannot say for sure. Recently the specific name-calling has subsided, now it is just homophobic insults. Even the insults were better in my day.
Now I keep my hair fairly short and have a beard trimming device. It helps to keep my beard a uniform length and also keeps me from looking too much like a hobo. Trying to define a neck line is tricky due to my impared field of vision, but with careful use of a comb and a steady hand it is possible to make a decent attempt.
Sometimes I think about shaving it all off, or shaving pieces off and letting the skin get some direct sunlight for the first time in years. Sometimes I think about leaving just the moustache and getting a nice pair of sideburns, deadwood style, but I don't think my moustache is as powerful as Tolliver's or Swearengen's and as a result I would just look worse than it does now.
