It’s official, but I am not ready.
Every year, as the winter season begins, I tend to grow some facial hair. Just a little goatee, not much to grow, and not much to shave. It’s something we guys can do that separates us from women… we can grow facial hair, and it is socially acceptable… sometimes even admired. This season it would be no different, let’s get to growing… At some point, somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I looked in the mirror to admire my “growtee” (a la wife) and saw something…unexpected.
Is that lint? Ouch! No… gray hair.
Not just oneâ€â€?a viable tuft, proudly sprouting in the lower left portion of my tribute to masculinity! Its not that I didn’t think I would ever get gray hair. I knew I would. It’s just that… I thought I would see it coming. You know, like some people feel a migraine coming or a car wreck or a hurricane… Now understand that an ugly cuss like me doesn’t care if gray hair makes him look “old”. The shock was more of a realization that I have entered a new stage of life… I have grown up. I am that thing called an “adult”. Not a “young adult” but a straight up “adult”.
This moment is incongruous with what I expected life to be “when I grew up.” I expected, minimally, to have an established home, vocation, and family. I am only a year into building all of these and I feel more confused than ever… is that grown up?
Ouch!
Dog-gone… that’s grey hair, too.