# Beards

Growing a beard is a gradual change. A good beard takes time to grow, months for some men, years for others. Sure, you can have the basic outline there in only a few days, but it takes times for the slow peachfuzz to grow out and help fill it in. Your family, your friends, your coworkers, the people at the coffee shop, they all have a chance to get used to it. Sometimes they don't even notice, one week you don't have a beard, the next week you do.

Shaving a beard, on the other hand, is a drastic and immediate change. You have a beard. Five minutes later you don't. The very first person you run into who knows you, no matter how casual the acquantance, will notice something different about you.

I started growing my current beard about this time of year in 2004. I couldn't tell you exactly when, such is the way with beards.

Sometimes a drastic change is needed.

posted at: 2008 Jan 22 19:41 UTC | category: life | (story link)