The Freckle
Out of the blue I had a freckle on my bottom lip, right in the center. I didn’t have it this morning, but after lunch, there it was. Brown and round and obvious.
I had applied a random lip balm I found in my car’s glovebox right before my morning walk. Not SPF lip balm but greasy, glossy clear petroleum jelly lip balm. Vaseline in a tube. I liked the feel it gave my lips. It didn’t cause them to dry out or get flakey. Could that be why? Did this greasy balm cause my brand new lip splotch?
I walked three miles with Aviva along the bike trail. We met at 10am, which is a bit on the late side for us, but the weather was still cool. I kept my head down because it was sunny. Wasn’t hot but there was sun. I wasn’t wearing sunglasses or a hat (I never do) and although I thought for a quick second about wearing a hat, that maybe I should get a hat, I didn’t have a hat right then, so I kept on walking. When I got home and looked in the mirror, there it was, a freckle that clearly hadn’t been there five hours earlier.
I tried to scrape it off with my fingernail and even ran my electric toothbrush over my lip. It was still there. I woke up my napping husband so he could take a closer look. “Yep, it looks like a freckle. Keep an eye on it and if it changes, you should see a dermo.” I called Dr Gross right away and made an appointment for tomorrow. I know this isn’t life changing, not really. I don’t expect this to be fatal, but it proves my theory that life can change in an instant.
One day you are skiing in Colorado and then you are a quadriplegic from an accidental crash into a tree. One day you are dropping your kids off at first grade and then planes are crashing into buildings and America will never be the same. One night you talk to your mother for over an hour on a nightly long-distance call and then she passes away two hours later at the kitchen table. These are big events, not like a freckle on a lip. Those are life changing, never going back to what was, events.
I rationally know this about life. I do my best to live in the moment and find joy in the smallest of places — a good bagel for breakfast, the best parking spot in the Target parking lot, a front yard full of bright yellow and orange roses. I’m just shocked by something permanent showing up out of the blue right in the middle of my aging face.
I don’t wear much make up anymore, especially lipstick, but now I think maybe I will forever have to so my freckle would be camouflaged. Do I really? Does this dark pigment look that bad? Does this sudden change to my face make me drastically more aware of the need for sunscreen all the time, even on cloudy days? Yes. It does.
Knowing me, I’ll tell this story over and over and in time, may laugh about it. I’ll remember the glossy feel on my lips and my thought that this particular lip gloss will now be my go-to cosmetic. But it won’t be. I threw out the tube.
I’m sure tomorrow Dr Gross will remind me that I’m fair skinned and prone to sun damage and ask why the heck did I not use a product with SPF. And I’ll nod and probably apologize to him (and myself). And hopefully in time I’ll come to acknowledge that this new mark is maybe a blessing in disguise because I will NEVER leave the house un-SPF’d ever again.
