A strange epiphany

You know, despite having had some kind of hair on my face for the vast majority of the last 15 or so years, I have never really considered myself a Bearded Guy. Which in one way is obviously pretty dumb, because I have literally been a bearded guy (in some form or another) for the majority of that time. But I never thought I was, you know, a Bearded Guy, a Guy With A Beard. Bearded Guys were people's uncles, or high school science teachers. They wore glasses and cardigans. I had none of those things. I just happened to frequently have some hair going on in that general beard area.

Maybe that was because my beard was always more a product of apathy than a decisive pro-beard choice. Sure, I'm down with having a beard on my face, beards are all good, but my motivation was (most often) less of "beards are sweet!" and more "shaving is a pain in my arse face". Or maybe it was that Bearded Guys were old. Always of that avuncular, science-teachy generation. And maybe it's because I'm 33 now, and old enough to be someone's uncle, and instruct teens in science (if only I was qualified or competent enough to do so), but just now I was in the bathroom thinking about job interviews, and I had a train of thought that went like this:

1) Hmm, probably gonna have to shave this beard off. Well, it comes and goes every so often anyway.
2) ...wait, no. You don't have to shave it off. You just have to tidy it up some.
3) ...because after all, you have a beard. These days, it going away is a rare occasion, followed by it immediately coming back again, because having a beard is one of your things
4) ...oh my God, it really is one of my things. I am, in fact, a habitual beard wearer.

I'm sure this will seem strange to anyone and everyone who has been staring at my habitually bearded face for the last decade and a half, and dunno if I can hope to explain it really, but suffice it to say that stage 4 there really hit me as something of a blinding revelation.

- Ben Allan, Bearded Guy.