Tom - that is what I had THIS summer, where I wanted to shave it all off and you all helped me, as you wrote a lot, but now you know it ...to ignore it, if it comes so HARD from people you love, like your mother, it ISN´T easy.
I don´t know if you remember... this summer my mother sat next to my neighbour (which I really like) and he told me when do I stop that horrible $!*$? The bald head and the beard are looking ugly and the basecaps I mostly have worn let me look like a stupid handicapped person and my mother AGREED - I said nothing my friend, but I can´t tell you how much I was hurt. And it was exactly the same as it was with your mother - she used him only as a channel to transport her statements.

It simply shows how great people we are here, or we were gotten through the beard journey cause and it is a FAKT - we look DIFFERENT and with this DiFFERENT look we love to express we accept (if we didn´t accept already before) much more other different people. We are more tolerant!

Ignore is not easy. The only thing you can do is:

1. You now know for ever how superficial and cruel this people are - for the people you do not LOVE!
2. For the people you LOVE, it is necessary to calm down and talk to them and tell them how much you are hurt and that you love to be and to look like you look today and you expect that she accepted it, if she loves you.

...normally you don´t have to talk about it with a MOTHER, but please think over, that she probably heared nothing else, but these ugly words about your beard the last month. People need to talk and I am convinced that my mother heard so much ugly comments on my new me, that at the summer feast with my neighbour only breaks the dam.

You are a fantastic person with a wunderful unique beard and hammer attitiude. I wish you that you come over this $!*$ and calm down and clear everything with your mother.

Good luck my friend ..and sorry for some wrong english words, cause this complicated topics are difficult to explain for me in a foriegn language.

Dirk

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Keep informed about my beard-experience:

> Long Beards, more than 4 inches or 10 cm
> You are so HAMMER, my friends....


image

"I don´t want a perfect life - only a perfect beard"