The long and the short of it

   Those who see me on a regular basis know that I have the ability to grow a fairly grizzled beard.  It's not something that defines me, per say, but it is definitely part of my external imprint.  When you close your eyes and imagine Daris, the blurry oddball you see is axiomatically fuzzy.  The bearded life has treated me well for the last 15 years or so, however, now a days it seems more and more men are beginning to look a lot more like me...or vice versa.  The beard is an over-saturated look; relegating me to associated society of vegans, hipsters, and lazies.  What once was a proud accouterment to my daily attire and expression, has now migrated my association to the likes of men who wear glasses without prescription lenses, or people who vape too frequently, or the proponents of ye-ol' man-bun.  The most frustrating thing about the beard epidemic is that it's really the only part of my body that grows hair in appropriate amounts.  I started going bald around 20 and tapped the bench for a beard that inadvertently became my unanticipated follic symbol, if you will. It's been most places with me as an adult.  It's encompassed many of my meals.  Good times and bad, my beard has toiled with me through it all.  Alas, now we have a situation where every Tom, Dick, and Harry is embracing the previously proud lifestyle of beardom and trending the respectability from it's roots.

   I have cut my beard.  Not shaved, but drastically reduced, in size and stature, the thing I once loved and cherished.  Enjoy the fad fellow facial fozzies.  It treated me with dignity and respect, and I can only hope all you flannel-wearing, skinny jean loving, must-own-one-tiny-dog-and-one-giant-dog, corn cob pipe smoking, Edgar Allen Poe reading maniacs appreciate what you have.  Because it was once mine.  And it loved me.