Where to begin? I am 33 years old and have had a chin goatee, full goatee or a beard of some sort for the last 16ish years, save for a few random stints where I shaved everything off. The one think that I haven't ever tried is a long beard, but I have always wanted to. I always stopped myself because I wasn't confident in my cheek growth or I thought that it wouldn't grow down appropriately. My wife has been wanting me to grow it out for a few years, and more recently, a few long bearded acquaintences started to encourage me, so in mid October, I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, I didn't start out with a goal in mind, or a plan, so I kept shaving my beard into the shap that I had and just letting what was there grow. In early November, I realized that this was a mistake and moved my cheek line up and my neck line down. In late November I moved the lines up and down more, but was still maintaining lines, as well as keeping my stache short. In mid December, I finally decided to let the lines go, but was still keeping the stache short. By the end of December, I realized that the stache looked funny short with the rest getting longer and filling out, so I stopped trimming it as well. This has left me with a beard in progress with several different stages of growth. Clear as mud? Good.
This is what I started with in mid October:

And this is where I am now:




It is difficult to say what week I am actually in, given the numerous changes, but I have decided that I would like to try for a full yeard. I'll probably say that it started in December, since that is when I finally stopped keeping lines. I have to say, I am excited at the prospect, but I have had several, "I'm shaving it off" moments. I was concerned about my cheeks being too sparse until about 2 weeks ago when the hair that I had been shaving started to get a little bit longer to fill in. Last week I thought that I was going to shave it because I couldn't stand how unkempt it was looking, despite my efforts with combing, brushing and using a bit of wax. Really, I think that it is largely the fact that I still have a fair amount of hairs entering that annoying stage. My wife insists that it looks fine, and on Friday I saw a friend that I hadn't seen in a couple of months and the first thing he said was, "awesome beard," which helped. Right now, my main issue is that my right side always wants to bush out and the right side underneath always wants to curl out. I am hoping that this will resolve itself with time and some additional length. My apologies for the lengthy essay, and thank you for reading.
This is what I started with in mid October:

And this is where I am now:




It is difficult to say what week I am actually in, given the numerous changes, but I have decided that I would like to try for a full yeard. I'll probably say that it started in December, since that is when I finally stopped keeping lines. I have to say, I am excited at the prospect, but I have had several, "I'm shaving it off" moments. I was concerned about my cheeks being too sparse until about 2 weeks ago when the hair that I had been shaving started to get a little bit longer to fill in. Last week I thought that I was going to shave it because I couldn't stand how unkempt it was looking, despite my efforts with combing, brushing and using a bit of wax. Really, I think that it is largely the fact that I still have a fair amount of hairs entering that annoying stage. My wife insists that it looks fine, and on Friday I saw a friend that I hadn't seen in a couple of months and the first thing he said was, "awesome beard," which helped. Right now, my main issue is that my right side always wants to bush out and the right side underneath always wants to curl out. I am hoping that this will resolve itself with time and some additional length. My apologies for the lengthy essay, and thank you for reading.
