To Beard or Not To Beard...

So here I find myself once again, having had all week to write down the countless thought starters for blog posts, the hours that I wake in the night, feel too lazy to write down the thoughts that woke me and then forget them by morning.
The 45 minute commute to work and then the same back again where my mind wonders off on to full paragraphs...which then turn in to incomprehensible half-sentences by the time I'm able to write any of it down.

Now, I'm not saying that these lost thoughts would provide the solution for world hunger, end wars or topple corrupt governments, but at least they would provide me with a little more material to chose from and limit the potential that what you are left reading here is simply pure drivel (I've set myself up here I know)!

Instead, each of the past few weeks I've found myself sat on the sofa late on a Sunday night, racking my brain and hoping that the words that pour out make some sense and resemble something readable!

Truth is however, this Sunday night ritual is becoming quite therapeutic!

What started as a final attempt to end the year of blogging on a high (quite a simple task, seeing as more than one blog post in 3 months would have been a successful outcome!) by committing myself to blogging at least once at some point of each of the remaining 6 weeks of the year, has turned in to a mad dash on a Sunday evening in the feint hope that I may recount a tale from the 7 days prior that you may want to read.

With that in mind, the past 7 days have once again been slightly overtaken by work but one recurring theme has underlined this week even more... Facial hair!

Now regular readers of my blog posts will know the many brushes with my masculinity...or lack of it...over the years but one of the 2 main things I appear to have inherited from my dad is my ability to grow facial hair at a pretty alarming rate but until recently I have always opted to keep this down to the bare minimum designer stubble...(in case you're wondering, the other one is an ever expanding forehead, so the less said about that the better!)

However, as the cold nights have drawn in over the past couple of months I have been slowly introducing more and more hair to my face (through growth, not literally introducing my face to other people's hair).
Much to my girlfriends initial despair!
But sometimes, you have to play the long game and eeking out time between shaving longer and longer each time.

Until the past few weeks when I have avoided shaving completely and all of a sudden, as if from nowhere, I am suddenly a man with a beard!

I am literally growing myself masculine!

And it seems to be growing on my girlfriend as well! Well, not literally, that would be weird! But as the days pass and the beard remains, a new normal is being created...one that would be strange if I were to remove it!

But with increased masculinity, comes great responsibilities! All of which leads to all manner of decisions to make...What style? How long? How often to groom? Do I go professional? Do I just grow it out? Is it worth all of this effort?

In fact, 2 of my 3 open pages in my Safari browser are Beard Grooming related...which may be a little more than you wanted to know about me...but it just shows a) how seriously I am prepared to take this new part of my life and b) how desperate I am to ensure that this one shred of masculinity isn't ruined by all my other emasculated parts!

It really is a minefield! There are hours of videos available to the budding beard grower to help sculpt, style and pamper hair that happen to grow around the chin, neck and cheeks!

Thankfully, the research seems to have paid off and the first attempt at home grooming the beard didn't leave a chevron or two accidentally shaved in to my cheeks or one side-burn longer than the other.
Have no fear, you will be kept well informed of all things beard-related, whether you actually want to be or not!

I've actually conducted a few surveys of friends and family on the beard (even post-grooming) and so far all responses seem positive...so guess in the question of "To Beard or Not To Beard?", the answer is "A beard is for life...not just for Christmas"!

So, no moral tale this week and a relatively short narrative in comparison to many of my other endless ramblings but I hope you'll agree that on this journey of life even the simplest of things can have the greatest impact...even Facial hair! (Oops, maybe there was a thinly veiled moral tale)

p.s. For those of you wondering, the 3rd open page in my Safari browser is an Avocado smoothie recipe! I know what you're thinking...wish I hadn't asked! Yeah...I'm pretty rock and roll!