There comes a point in a man’s life when the hair on his head apparently receives a government relocation order.
It does not disappear.
It transfers.
Some of it moves south into the eyebrows, where it immediately abandons all respect for zoning laws. One eyebrow hair will suddenly decide it is no longer part of an eyebrow at all but the mast of a nineteenth-century sailing vessel.
Another relocates to the ear.
Nobody invited it.
Nobody needed it.
Yet there it stands, proud and solitary, catching the morning light like it has accomplished something.
Meanwhile, the top of my head has become remarkably efficient.
I shave it.
I have accepted the arrangement.
What I have not accepted is the occasional nickel-sized patch that somehow survives the razor and announces itself three hours later in a bathroom mirror.
I can shave an entire head and somehow leave behind one small island of resistance.
There it sits.
The Alamo of scalp hair.
I have reached an age when grooming requires the kind of inspection once reserved for aircraft.
Head: check.
Ears: check.
Eyebrows: questionable.
Nose: we will not discuss this publicly.
Beard: increasingly involved in winter weather.
The beard presents its own difficulties because gray does not arrive politely.
It stages a coup.
One morning there are a few silver hairs around the chin. Six months later Santa Claus appears to be occupying the lower half of your face.
And somewhere along the way moisturizer becomes something you actually understand.
When I was twenty, moisturizer sounded like something sold beside scented candles.
Now I look at dry skin and think, We need supplies.
Aging does not happen all at once.
It arrives in tiny absurdities.
One eyebrow hair.
One strange creak getting out of a chair.
One moment when you realize you are trimming hair from a place where hair should have had the decency never to appear.
The Bureau of Aging apparently has a sense of humor.
Its motto seems to be:
Take from where he wants it. Put it where he doesn’t.
Even the creatures around here seem unimpressed.
Sean the jumping spider can sit on the wall watching the entire grooming operation with eight eyes and still somehow look judgmental.
The truth is, I do not mind growing older nearly as much as I once thought I would.
There are inconveniences.
There are surprises.
There are mornings when the mirror appears to be conducting an independent investigation.
But there is also something freeing about it.
You stop negotiating with time.
You adapt.
You shave what needs shaving.
Trim what has wandered beyond its assigned territory.
Laugh at the parts that deserve laughing at.
Then you get dressed and go live your life.
Growing older is not surrender.
Sometimes it is simply learning where the hair went.
Take the first step.
Do the part that is mine.
