I shaved my beard on Friday night. That’s literally how my weekend started. I pretty much cut my manhood from my face. I expected to look at myself in the   mirror and see a face I hadn’t seen in months, pale malnourished and tired. I expected the bags under my eyes and all the scratches and little notches in my face from years of being hit, scratched and smashed on the floor from an all manor of different boyish things to be much more prominent and recognisable.

I guess that’s part of why I grew my beard in the first place. But besides it being a little bit of a trend and a great way to keep my face warm during the winter, I think the main reason as to why I grew it out was because I can, because I wanted too.

I made that decision by myself. Even though my parents, aunties, uncles and any other person with a shit opinion about me looking like a terrorist, gave me crap for it, I still decided to grow it out, long passed the Jesus point and borderline to that caveman, barbarian look.

I liked it a lot. But with fathers day coming around, and my dad constantly expressing his displeasure of having a 30-year-old living upstairs and eating all his food as opposed to his regular 20 year old son living upstairs eating all his food, I thought it was time for it to go.

But it was tougher than I thought. I grew so comfortable with it there that I forgot that I had a mad cleft chin and a top lip. I forgot what I actually looked like. But looking back on old photos, for some weird reason, I think anyway, I look different. The person standing in front of the mirror seemed to be a different person to the one that started his beard journey at the start of winter. I think that was nearly 6 months ago. A lot can happen in 6 months.

I don’t think I’m a better person, nor do I really think I’m worse than what I was, but I certainly am not the same.

I got scared for a second because for a moment I thought that the reason why I changed the way I looked was because I thought I looked better. That people would like me more. And maybe, looking back on it now, that was true. But realising that I no longer look like that person made me understand why I liked the way I looked before I shaved. It’s not because of everyone else. It was because of me. I liked it because that was a massive part of who I am. Its what I wanted, its how I felt, and to this day it’s the choices I made. Everybody else, for all I cared, could jog on.

 

You see, I figured it out. No matter how hard you try, playing a game, where you’re constantly trying to help someone, constantly trying to make them happy, it wont get you anywhere unless they want to do the same for you. People don’t care. It’s the worst part of humans… not caring. Yea, its cool and reflective of your chill nature but at the end of the day if you don’t care about someone, anyone, that tries to make you feel better, then there really is no reason, for that person to make an effort.

 

I shaved because it’ll make my parents happy. I’m the youngest, and without a doubt the baby of the family. They don’t want me to grow up, even though I already look 25, they want me to stay a kid forever. And they have made me happy for a long time, I couldn’t have asked for better parents. So if getting rid of the beard was a way to make them be happy to recognise their son again, then so be it. I didn’t recognise the person in the mirror because he was changed guy, worn down and beaten by the winter. But I was that guy now, a guy who realised that making the people who make him happy, happy, is what’s most important.