I'd like to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances... Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else."
Nadine Stair, 85, Louisville, Kentucky
"Woah - what is that!?"
I'd flown into San Francisco with one of my best mates to surprise our other best mate on his birthday. His wife - who'd helped us coordinate - hadn't seen me for a few months. The new addition to my face was quite the surprise.
As a big tech executive, she was quick to transform the group photo we'd just taken into a parody of me and my new stylish appendage.
For the past four months I've been growing a moustache. Those that know me know I've had something ranging from designer stubble to a full-grown mountain beard for the best part of 20 years. But I've never just had a moustache, nor emphasised it as part of my beard.
The inspiration came from a few things colliding at once over the new year.
My wife and I binge-watched the entire season of House of Guinness on Netflix. For those who haven't seen it (and you should - it's a great watch) - it charts the rise of Arthur and Edward Guinness at the helm of the burgeoning Guinness empire in 1840s Dublin.
I was particularly taken by the handlebar moustache donned by Arthur Guinness - the older, more flamboyant of the brothers. Whilst numerous people - my wife included - were at pains to point out I look nothing like him, I couldn't help but feel it would be fun to try and replicate his facial appendage.
During the same holiday, I listened to a Tim Ferriss podcast - for the life of me I can't remember which one, I listen to so much of his stuff - but he was interviewing a much older guest who'd been highly successful in his field and now had three adult children. Tim asked him: what's the best advice you could give to a hopefully-soon-to-be father?
His answer:
"Lean into your weirdness. When your kids grow up and build their own families, they are unlikely to remember the mundane. My kids remember the weird piece of art we had above the dining room table."
It was almost like the perfect piece of encouragement I needed to hear at the exact moment I was contemplating a moustache.
And so it began.
I wouldn't say my parents were overly eccentric - any spare time they had outside of working hard to provide for me was usually dedicated to me and the myriad of sports I played.
I always felt - and still do - that my folks did a great job of styling and designing our home on a shoestring budget and without much time. I grew up feeling wealthy, even though I know now we were far from it. A credit to both of them and their dedication to hard work and high standards.
But as with everyone, they had their style phases that, whilst I'm sure were very fashionable at the time (think 80s and 90s), in ageing elicit a chuckle - though the very oddness of them means they're cornerstones of my childhood memories.
For a time they collected ceramic ducks of all shapes and sizes, which decorated the fireplace and mantlepiece in our living room. We'd collect them on our travels, add to them from antique shops and flea markets we stumbled on.
Then, almost as clearly as I remember the flock of my childhood, I have no recollection of them going - just that they were no longer there.
My parents also went through a phase of putting paintings and prints of old military scenes on the walls of our sitting room, which we creatively named the "Burgundy Room" by virtue of the burgundy leather Chesterfield and walls adorned with elaborate Laura Ashley wallpaper of a burgundy hue - an old English style drawing room feel.
Again the phase ended, the Chesterfield was donated to an old uni mate, and a solitary military picture remains.
My dad had a moustache too, though my recollections of it are vague. He rode the wave of Magnum PI obsession in the early to mid 80s by donning a thick black lip-brow. He was a policeman at the time - so it felt even more apt. But it was gone before I turned ten and never returned.
It's funny to me how little of the day-to-day I can remember of my childhood. Just the weird and unusual.
As if I needed another sign - at the same time as the Netflix show and the podcast, I happened to have dinner with another one of my best mates, whose dad has famously donned a handlebar moustache for the best part of 40 years.
His decision to grow one stemmed from a job posting in Afghanistan for the World Bank, right after the Russians invaded. He started to receive abuse in the streets because he was a fair-haired, white-skinned man, and the locals thought he was Russian. A local Afghan said to him: "Grow a beard or a moustache - they'll know you're not Russian, because the Russian soldiers have to be clean-shaven."
He grew a beard. It was too itchy. So he shaved it off and kept the moustache. He's had it ever since. My mate has never known him without one.
My mate also told me he'd love to grow one himself - but didn't want to look like he was trying to be his dad. So he's refrained.
As I embarked on my own moustache journey I researched how long it might take and found that it took Anthony Boyle - the actor who played Arthur Guinness - over two months to get to critical mass. I knew I had to commit.
The early weeks meant getting through the awkward phase - the hair on my lip protruding more than the rest of my designer stubble but not quite shaping into anything. Then, as it got longer, it started to get unruly.
I discovered I'd likely need some kind of styling wax and soon found myself down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos and Reddit forums. I settled on something called "Death Wax" - the substance of choice for the serious moustache man.
When it arrived, the sinister packaging and myriad of stickers with variations on the company logo might have been enough to put me off, until I scanned the QR code and ended up on the company website watching an instructional video on how to get the best results from Death Wax.
After using specialised beard straightening tongs, I was expected to use a hairdryer to soften the wax, then use the supplied guitar plectrum to scoop out a small amount onto each thumb and quickly apply it before it re-set. It was already feeling like a part-time job.
I decided against the tongs. After a few rounds of Death Wax, which left my fingers feeling like I'd inadvertently touched wet superglue and my top lip feeling like it had been covered in a layer of cement, I reverted to something far less extreme. I sacrificed hold for convenience. No regrets.
My kids mostly thought I looked like the Lorax - though once we started watching Ted Lasso they also saw some resemblance there.
The COO of one of the companies we invest in said I reminded him of the Monopoly Man. A group of entrepreneurs I moderate for each month insisted I come to our next meeting dressed as Mr Monopoly. It didn't seem like the stupidest request.
Most mornings my daughter had to remind me to wipe the coffee foam from it before she'd hug me.
My son's football coach said I looked like Salvador Dali - but needed to shape the ends into more pronounced curls. Something I didn't quite have the nerve to do on a regular day in New York.
I found that courage last week, holidaying in Mexico - where every local I encountered complimented me on my efforts. My rationale: I wouldn't be seeing anyone I knew, so why not really play with it. Much to my wife and kids' chagrin.
When we walked into the restaurant at our hotel and bumped into a family who live two blocks from us in New York, whose kids are in the same school as our boys, I died inside. Even though the dad complimented me on the extent of my creation.
In the rush between kids' football matches, I shaved the moustache off in the most unceremonious way possible. After four months of cultivation, it felt like time. The eye rolls from the kids and the increasing resistance from my wife definitely played a part. But more than anything, the maintenance had become too much. And my unruly appearance when I didn't style it left me uncomfortable.
I was genuinely blown away by the compliments along the way. Not so much from people I know - but from strangers in a coffee shop, or walking down the street in a different neighbourhood. Those comments kept me going. I'd always be on the verge of chopping it off when someone would say something nice, and it would get a stay of execution.
I felt self-conscious meeting someone new - especially on a Zoom call - and had to actively stop myself stroking and styling it when I wasn't talking.
But it was fun. Growing something daft, committing to it, seeing it through, and then cutting it off when it was done. A small, slightly ridiculous act of leaning into the weird.
My kids thought it was funny. Their friends laughed along too. Will they remember it? Probably. The way I remember my dad's Magnum PI lip-brow. The ceramic ducks. The Burgundy Room.
The mundane doesn't stick. The weird does.
My wife says the family photo from Mexico - the last photo of the moustache - won't make the Christmas card. But maybe I'll make a New Year's card instead. Just to keep people guessing.
What's the weird thing you've been talked out of? The thing your family eye-rolls at, the idea that feels too daft or too indulgent to actually do. Do it anyway. Your kids won't remember the sensible version of you.
