In recent years, I have visited a local salon on a four-weekly basis to keep my hair cut short.

In these times of lock-down I have not had an opportunity to have it cut, and it has grown to such an extent that the top of my head looks healthy with a wavy head of hair which is dark grey on the top of my head and light grey around the edges and at the back.

My wife made me laugh when she said it looked great, and that she actually preferred the longer style on me, however, she also told me that I looked like a badger!.

I have made it my mission to leave my hair uncut until the salon opens. I have overcome the temptation to acquire a set of clippers and cut it myself, so that my hair will be a physical representation of the restriction under which we are living in the days of the coronavirus.

To select a longer style, in stark contrast to my preference, is a challenging discipline to endure. To choose a longer style, in direct conflict to my preference for much shorter hair is an opportunity to harness my capacity to be different in the world.

To display a thick and colourful grey head of hair opens up an opportunity for me to be expansive, to tolerate the intolerable, to embrace the opposing ideals and ideas which are constantly raging within my soul.

Choices are difficult, because they inevitably forgo the alternative, and my choice to be married whilst innately being gay is a constant challenge which has seemed to get heavier with increasing age.

Exercises which help me to grow my mind and my spirit, help me to see the good I am trying to do, despite my own difficulties which causes me great suffering, I am able to see the wider intention to keep the promise which I made to my wife all those years ago.

Displaying one way, and longing for another has been the undulating rhythm of my life and now my uncut hair has for me become a physical representation of all that I have tried to be.

William Defoe