By Just Another First Occupier

When Time Breaks

There are moments when you realize you are no longer operating on the same clock as everyone else. Loss does that. It doesn’t announce itself. It simply shifts the gravity of things. What mattered yesterday still matters, but not in the same way. And some things—appearance, polish, presentation—suddenly feel secondary, even dishonest.

This is one of those moments.

So I’m letting my hair grow. I’m letting my beard grow. Not wildly. Not carelessly. Clean. Kept. Unrushed. I’m doing it because it feels right, and because anything else would feel like pretending nothing has changed.

Grooming Is Participation

We don’t talk about this much anymore, but grooming has always been a social signal. It says, “I’m presentable. I’m participating. I’m ready to engage.” When life is intact, that makes sense. When it isn’t, the signal starts to feel false.

Across history, people in grief understood this instinctively. Widowers, mourners, the displaced—those whose lives had been broken open—often paused ordinary grooming. Not to become unkempt, but to step out of ordinary time. Letting hair and beard grow was a way of saying, “I’m still here, but I’m not the same.”

That resonates with me more than I expected.

This Is Not Neglect

This matters: this is not neglect. This is not giving up. This is not rebellion or aesthetic posturing. It’s recognition. Recognition that loss changes a person, and that change deserves space.

I keep myself clean. I take care. But I’m no longer interested in smoothing over the evidence of time or grief so others feel more comfortable. This face, this gray, this wear—that’s not something to hide. It’s what endurance looks like when you stop performing strength and start practicing honesty.

Time Made Visible

Hair grows whether you want it to or not. There’s something grounding about that. It’s time made visible. Each day, it quietly reminds me that grief isn’t a switch you flip. It’s a season. You don’t rush seasons. You move through them.

I didn’t plan this. I didn’t decide it in a mirror. I just found myself resisting the razor. Not out of laziness, but out of respect—respect for what was lost, and for who I am now. I don’t owe anyone a cleaned-up version of mourning.

When the Blade Comes Back

Historically, even the end of this mattered. Cutting the beard wasn’t about forgetting. It was about carrying forward. It marked a transition, not an erasure.

That day may come for me, too. I’ll know when it does. It won’t be scheduled. It won’t be symbolic for an audience. It will simply be time.

Until then, this is me. Changed. Standing in it. Not hiding. Not rushing. And for now, that’s enough.