Hiding

"What are you doing with your face?" DW asked me about a week ago.

"Quite literally, nothing."

About a month ago, I decided to stop shaving. Or, rather, I simply stopped shaving. I don't think that there was any thought process to it. My electric razor needed a recharge, which I promptly fulfilled by plugging it in for a day. When it was fully recharged, I returned it to its drawer in the bathroom and essentially didn't touch it for almost a week.

When my neck was getting scraggly and itchy, I pulled out the shaver and trimmed only the areas beyond my jawline. And that's it. There was no conscious decision: I had merely removed the whiskers that were bothering me.

It wasn't until nearly three weeks had gone by without clearing the fuzz from my face that DW spoke up. She doesn't like beards. Never has.

After another week went by, she broached the subject again.

"Are you hiding your face?"

"What do you mean?" I countered.

"You know, your dad."

For a couple of months, I've been periodically complaining to DW that every time I look in the mirror, I no longer see myself. I see my dad.

My cheeks are a bit rounder and I'm starting to accumulate jowls. For a long time, my belly has been round, though I've recently started working on that.

I've got his short legs but thankfully my torso follows my mom's side of the family, and I'm about three or four inches taller than my dwarfy dad. I always hoped that my face would be more like those of my uncles—my mom's brothers—who I always thought had that striking, French trait.

Instead, my face has become pretty full-on Brown.

I know it's petty but I've never considered my dad to be a good-looking man. It might be due to him always referring to himself as a "handsome devil," to which I silently replied, "Really??"

So yes, part of my plan to loose the belly fat is to avoid having my dad's frame. I've never considered myself particularly good looking but liked to think I got a good balance of both parents' facial features.

When I started wearing glasses, full time, I started seeing more of my dad in my bathroom reflection. But ever since I've let my facial hair grow out, I see less of him.

I don't see more of me, either, but for the first time in months, I don't mind greeting this face in a mirror.

DW doesn't like the beard but I do. And I think, for the now, it's here to stay.

Not hiding at all.