In the mid nineties, every guy I knew seemed to be growing a goatee. At the time I thought it was the fashion, but I now suspect that it had more to do with my age. I was hanging out with guys like myself, all hitting thirty at the same time, all noticing their waistlines beginning to bulge, and all stumbling across the same disguise for the extra chins and blurring jawline. I had one myself.
After a few years, no amount of goatee could hide the fat even from my own indulgent gaze. A bout of unemployment (unwelcome at the time, but in hindsight very fortuitous) gave me six months in which to run five miles a day and swim another two, and as if by magic the weight went away, swiftly followed by the now superfluous fuzz.
I had done the goatee thing.
Now, I’m not suggesting that blogging is an attempt to hide the ravages of age, or indeed anything else. It has been stimulating and gratifying in its own right. I feel like I’ve made some good friends insofar as one can make friends this way. I’ve had fun, and hopefully I’ve entertained some of you too.
For all that, maintaining a blog is not the sort of thing that one can commit to doing forever, especially when you have four kids and an increasingly demanding job breathing down your neck. A year of this was fun, and I could go a while longer yet, but it will not always be so. I’d rather quit now while I still remember blogging fondly than wait until I resent it as a burden. So, as with the goatee, it’s time to draw the line.
I have done the blog thing.
Therefore this’ll be my last entry for the foreseeable future. I might do some tidying up with the labels, and I’ll leave the links up, but that’ll be it. I'll see you all at your own blogs every now and then – meanwhile, thanks for dropping by, and all the very best for the New Year.
It’s been a blast…
