Sanity Check: Where Are My Lips?

Now that I’m officially middle-aged, I have one pressing question.

Where are my lips?

Just a little while ago when I was a teen, I figured that if I lived all those incredibly numerous years into my forties, I’d have answers to all the major questions—what’s the purpose of life? Why are we here? etc., etc.—and would have discovered some new questions.

Well, I’m still not an expert-in-life (although I’m pretty sure the answers to those questions have to do with life is important for its own sake and we’re here to love one another) and the only new question I have is…

WHERE ARE MY LIPS?

As recently as age 39 I was in full possession of my lips.

There they were—the top lip a little thin, the bottom a little full, both cherry-ish in color, and more or less centered below my nose.

And then… they just started to fade away.

I took vitamins.

My lips kept fading.

I gave my lips lectures, staring in the mirror at the part of my image where my lips used to be, and commanding: “no more lipping off!”

My lips remained pale, so I tried biting my lips (like I did when I was a teen and actually WANTED to wear lipstick, but wasn’t allowed) but that just hurt and didn’t bring any color to my lips.

So, finally, I tossed aside my trusty lip balm for tinted lip balm.

My lips came back, for a little while, but soon even the tinted balm wasn’t doing the job.

I really didn’t want to start wearing lipstick, because I just wanted my lips to stick, not have to keep up with lip makeup maintenance.

But I was getting tired of people asking me if I’d just recovered from the flu—concerns based on lip pallor—and finally decided to put my money where my mouth is. Or was.

Anyway, equipped with several trusty lipstick hues—Magical Merlot and Winsome Wine and Ricocheting Rose—I finally again had a semblance of lips.

Except the lipstick didn’t stick just to my lips. It stuck to everything else, too. If lost, I could easily have been tracked by the lip phantoms I left everywhere: on napkins, glasses, mugs…

So I’m back to being the woman with no lips and wondering how that happened.

And please, don’t give me any lip about how this isn’t exactly a major issue given the state of the world.

Read my lips (if you can): I know this.

Because my lips taking off have given my eyebrows ideas.

And now I have another pressing question.

Where are my eyebrows?