I was just glancing at photo of myself from the days long ago that are better off forgotten. I recognize most of the people in the shot, but I required third-party authentication before I could believe that the almost skeletal looking dude in the very center of the picture was, in fact, myself. Part of it was the luxurious red hair, thick, wavy, shining in the sun. And I was rocking the best attempt at facial hair which I could muster, which was more of a honey fire outline of my jaw and mouth than anything resembling an actual beard. I believe this was toward the end of the Dark Days, when I weighed about 110 pounds and felt that I had finally cheated the fate which normally befell members of my family: a transformation into a member of a pod of beached orcas. You know, this is the first time that I’ve seen a photo of myself and I just drew a blank. I simply cannot reconcile how that person looked with the man who I remember being. I suppose that’s a PSA all of its own. And I know that it wasn’t a healthy weight, but I am almost twice that now, and I wonder if I’ve really become twice the man who I once was, or have simply gotten fatter.

Oh, the hair. I remember my headbanging hair. Like my Irish great-grandfather, I’ve traded what once sprouted from my noggin to become a member of the Sasquatch family, but let me tell you: on cold days I get the worst kind of headaches. Don’t get me wrong: I love having a beard, and usually only shave annually. I started to dislike shaving somewhere around high school. And being bald means that I spend infinitely less time in the shower washing my hair. But none of that changes the fact that I miss my thick lion’s mane, and sometimes looking like a Mirror Universe Jean-Luc Picard is not enough.

In December, just before we traveled up to the Great Northwest, I began writing a blog entry which never fully materialized. It also had to do with my #beardedmanproblems:

I’ve spent a fair amount of time since I quit my job considering the finer points of beard maintenance. I plan to look for work while vacationing up north with my family, and I am aware that, although facial hair is hardly unique within the borders of the Emerald City, something must be done about my tangled neckbeard (Note to self: Tangled Neckbeard and the Soul Patch Quartet). Down here, in California, my beard is mostly just an affectation, at least in terms of functionality. But next when I’m up there, the temperature looks to be, on average, about 20 degrees cooler during the warmest parts of the day. So I’ve been ruminating on how much of my neckpelt I can trim and still not need to wear a scarf (I bought a new suit for a wedding I attended almost a month ago, and honestly don’t own any appropriately matching neck apparel). I should probably also get a haircut (the bald man said, with some regret).

And if I begin to trim, I’ll wind up needing a full shave, as I usually manage to over-correct until only tiny patches still remain. The downside to that, of course is that I’ll once again look only twelve, and have to place bare skin against the freezing wind. No, better to wear a nice shirt and a fancy tie to plaster down the fur below my jaw. I’ll still need a haircut, though, however sensitive a subject it remains with me.

I look back at that and think about just how hard it is to pound out a full column about beards. I’m actually only rescuing that fragment from its literary limbo so that I can use the title of its parent column for something in the future. Well, that and I wanted to share “neckpelt” with the world. But I suppose it’s time to gently drift back to my original premise: who was that dude in that picture from so long ago?

It was a different time back then. The world had not been thrust into a constant state of terror, and all of my friends were just setting themselves down upon the paths toward their futures. I was in a long-term relationship with a woman who I loved beyond all sense or reason. The very air itself was packed with possibilities, and we needed only to breathe it in to fill ourselves to bursting. My two best friends were both in bands and I’d written a song or two myself. Self-doubt was something that only happened to old people. These were the days free of hangovers and consequence when we were all poised upon the very edge of greatness and dared the world to prove us wrong. Note to my younger readers: Never dare the world to prove you wrong. It will, and usually not in ways which you are prepared to accept. Don’t tempt fate: Keep your challenges to reality to yourselves.

Over the next fifteen years we all got fat, got jobs, got new girlfriends, had those girlfriends break up with us, and found new women who seemed to actually give a crap about us and wanted to stick with us for the long haul. The world isn’t nearly as passionate as I remember it having been, but there is enough stability to more than make up for it. And while stability is hardly the poster child for sexiness, it is infinitely more rewarding. Oh god, I have gotten old. I know that compromise is something that is necessary to the running of the world, but it just seems so… I don’t know… grown-up. I know that I already covered the generational dissonance in growing up in Conversations in Time, but sometimes I still cannot believe how far I’ve fallen. Ah, screw it. I’m happier now than I really ever was before, and that’s got to count for something, right?

-Tex

Tonight I’ll be writing up a supplementary post about an event my friend is hosting in the Bay Area on Sunday (just as soon as she emails me the rest of the details). And, assuming that I’m feeling better, and my wife is up to it, we’ll be attending the event, with a review appearing Monday evening.