Beard Envy

I have beard envy. This isn’t easy for me, so bear with me. For all intents and purposes, I have the perfect life. Beautiful wife. Beautiful kids. Warm bed. Tons of debt. Only one thing is missing. Facial hair. It’s not that I don’t have any. I do. And it grows at a normal rate. It’s just that it’s thin and patchy. Really thin and patchy.

I wasn’t very old when I noticed I was different. When I was in high school I went camping for about a week with some friends. It was understood that no one was to shave – we were ‘roughing it.’ By the end of the trip, they all looked like Grizzly Adams. I looked like the business end of a newborn. They noticed. Made sport of me. Its difficult to talk about...but at that point, I was only 17 and I held out hope that over time I would become more heavily whiskered.

I am now 32 years old and all hope is gone. I have scoured the internet and haven’t found one verifiable case of someone my age finally hitting facial puberty. I’ve googled things like “how to grow a beard” and “face rogaine”. Nothing. The medical community assures me that if I haven’t been able to grow a beard by now....yeah.

The cruel irony is that I’m quite well whiskered on my neck. It is doubly cruel in that my younger sister, known for her unforgiving commentary on other people’s physical imperfections, has for years teased me about my ‘neck-beard’. Go a day without shaving my neck and I run the risk of my sister noticing and belittling me. “Love the neck beard.” “When are you gonna shave your neck?” Et cetera.

Some might say, “Life has handed you lemons, man – make lemonade. Grow that neck beard!”

If I wanted a dicky, I would buy a dicky. I want a beard.

I feel like a genetic comedy – and the whole world is in on the joke. I swear, everywhere I look I see beards – it’s like people are taunting me. All the men in my family – all the men in my family – toy with me. Growing beards. Then shaving beards. Regrowing beards. Just because they can. My dad is probably the hardest to take, not because he relishes it, but because I came from his gene pool and apparently picked up all his undesirable recessive traits. (That’s a complete blog in itself. Stay tuned.) He used to be one of the Wise Men every Christmas at our church. Stopped shaving about a half hour before the first show and was completely believable by the time the music started. I was a 20-something chosen to play the baby Jesus.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most socially adept person, but I’ve begun to even make myself uncomfortable with some of the things I say to people before I can stop myself:
“You have a magnificent beard.”
“Wow, when was the last time you shaved?”
“Wish I could grow a beard.”
“Lucky.”

The other day a mustachioed woman came into my shoe store. This was the last thing I needed. After the usual shoe talk I mindlessly asked, “How long did it take you to grow that?” That was the last thing she needed, apparently. She left and didn’t buy any shoes. I’m just kidding. She bought shoes.

I know I have a lot to live for and I am grateful for what I have. But heaven is gonna be awesome. I’m gonna do it all. Father Time. Fu-manchu. Handlebars. Lambchops. That curly-cue thing.

Man.

But until then, I’ll just have to live vicariously through others. So, to all you men (and women) out there who can grow a beard – Live! Live for me!