I had a lot of travel to contend with over the past couple weeks. While travel in and of itself isn’t a horrible thing, long trips are very unpleasant. I miss the family to an almost debilitating degree.
A lot of my friends and acquaintances say “Yeah, but you’re traveling to really cool places in Europe and all over the world”. True indeed. But I’d be equally lonely if I had to drive 2 hours to Chattanooga or fly 9 hours to London. It’s loneliness either way, only the accents change.
One of my friends asked why I’d grown out my beard. The picture at left is actually only 1/2 of the beard. I’ve since grown out a fuller beard.
I’d initially thought that I’d grown out my beard out of either laziness (so I didn’t have to shave) or curiosity (to see what it’d look like). But I knew this wasn’t completely honest.
But upon deeper reflection, I’ve grown my beard out to put distance between the Kevin of pre-1994 who was clean shaven, the Kevin of 1994-2005 who wore a goatee and the Kevin of today. Some women change their hair color after a major life transition. She grows up and heads off to college. When she comes home, everyone is surprised to see she’s a blond, or a redhead, or whatever.
I can’t say that I’ll keep it forever. I really don’t know. But I’m certain that, after a series of major transitions, the beard is part of my 21st century identity.
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