Werewolf, Shape Shifter, or the Man I Married

 

When I first met Eric he was clean shaven. He was in the National Guard, so he had to be. However just before we got married, he separated from the Army (or whatever you call it). So then he was free to experiment with growing a beard.

No beard for our wedding in December, but by my graduation in May, he was bearded.

Then for our summer trip to Nauvoo, he was shaven.

Back to a beard for Lisette’s birth that winter.

Then shaven again for the summer of 1997. (He’s feeding Lisette squid. Don’t worry she didn’t eat it.)

Then back to a beard the next winter.

He kept going back and forth until after Miles was born. Things got so hectic after Miles’s birth (1998) that Eric quit shaving again.

I thought that it was after Miles was born that he quit shaving for a good long time, but doing research for this blog post, I found this shaven Eric in a picture from Miles’s one-year-old birthday party 1999. But somewhere around 1999 he quit shaving for 10 years.

However Halloween 2000  he did have to shave to be Steve with Blue and Magenta.

2006 with Saffron on his back. 2008 in Alaska with the silver salmon.

September 2007 Eric was in a bushy beard phase.

Right after the bushy beard phase, he decided to try to wax his mustache. That was interesting.

For years, this was Eric. Then, December 2009, after about 10 years of constant beard, he shaved it off and kept shaving.  This is a picture right after he shaved. I thought I’d be okay with it, but I cried for two weeks every time I saw him. I didn’t recognize him as my husband.

But eventually I got used to his new look, and I loved him only slightly less than I used to (a Morrissey song lyric that Eric quotes). Every now and then (Conference weekends for example) he’d go a couple weeks without shaving and look fairly scruffy. But mostly he shaved at least once a week for 3 1/2 years.

Then finally, this April, 2012, he grew the beard back. Oddly, I’ve felt conflicted about it. Which of these men is my husband?

Last weekend, after two months of beard he shaved it again. Here’s a photo he just took for me with his phone.

So what’s your vote? Lisette and Miles think he should grow back the beard and keep it forever. Ian leans toward the beard. Saffron thinks he should keep shaving.