The Beardless Bearded Lady
Where to even start on it. My beard. It's something that I've more or less always had and always known. Allow me a short prattle.
When I was very young, when my face started to grow hair, right off the hop I wanted to have a beard. Like many adolescents, I groomed it, watched it grow, and hoped that it would fill in like I wanted (it did). I remember it growing in University. I remember it throughout all of my adult life. Even the female parts.
As Tannis started coming more and more to the surface over the years, the beard never wavered. I desired wearing makeup? It's going around the beard then. I'd read tales of bearded ladies that were in circuses. It confused me a bit as to why they would be looked at strangely. But even then, the concept in general seemed normal to me.
As I've said here and there, I count myself as a bearded lady. I want it back, and I'm not just saying that because my face is currently cold and tingly. This is a one-year deal, November 30th 2016 to 2017. Next birthday, I will cease shaving my face as before, and see how it grows back. If the beard was meant to exist, then grow back it shall! I'm one month into estrogen and anti-testosterone though, which is more or less what brought on this challenge to begin with.
My beard was coarse and dark. With HRT, it will begin to grow finer, lighter, and thinner. Were I to not shave it entirely, this would result in a beard that progressively has a fine, narrow stalk and a bushy end, like having a hairy broccoli growing off my chin. Nope, not dealin' with that one. I could take a straightener to it, and colour it, and all that such as time goes by, but that's a whole lot of work, maintenance, and products. Nuts to all that, let's just shear the sheep and be done with it.
Linked here are the mighty tools my beard chose for her honourable removal (her last photograph on my face). She chose the surgical scissors for their ability to rend her strands cleanly, and the steel bucket, a vessel truly worthy of her collection. She now rests at the site of the bravest of plants I have ever grown. A tiny handful of pea plants, planted far to late in the season, but with the vague hope of 'who knows, maybe'. Those plants struggled, surrounded by Ground Elder, receiving only the dimmest of light. Yet those pea plants, despite all their hardships and setbacks, still managed to produce not one, but two pea pods for me to snack upon. Found one day hammocking in the front yard, I promised them then that I would do something special for them.
May this area forever grow with the strongest of plants. Let their roots grow deep, and their stalks grow powerful. Let their futures be enhanced by the power of beard.
Page for the beard's triumphant return
