ChapStick: the Meaning of Life
“Hi, my name is Andrea and I am an addict.”
“Hi, Andrea,” the crowd coos, understandingly.
This is how I imagine the beginning of my first ChapStick Anonymous meeting. Marijuana, crack, heroin…my drug of choice is ChapStick. Panic, repetitive lip smacking, night sweats (ok, maybe not night sweats), withdrawls are nothing new to me. When I reach into my pocket and do not feel that plastic tube, I am instantly filled with this horrible, gut wrenching feeling. It all started seventeen years ago. I am convinced I left the womb, took my first breath of air, and then the nurse immediately refreshed my soft baby lips with the silky smooth application of ChapStick. The addiction is a byproduct of my mother. While not smoking during her pregnancy, her liberal and frequent applications of what I like to call “heaven on a stick” have done me harm. She used to warn me, but I never thought it would get this bad. By the age of seventeen, I have already become my mother—or worse!
The way I see it, ChapStick is a metaphor for life. Picture this: your lips are your life; the ChapStick is what you do with your life—the choices you make and the actions that follow. Of course you want your lips to slide smoothly over one another with ease, but chapped lips are inevitable. Chapped lips are the bumps in the road of life. They are the things that bring you down, but will later build you up. You make choices in your life that determine your future and yourself. This is where the ChapStick comes in. When you apply the cool, refreshing ChapStick to your chapped lips, they become smooth again. It does not matter the flavor or the color, it is the act, the change, whichsmooths the bumps and cracks that have been causing you so much turmoil.
Many times in my seventeen years I have found myself with chapped lips. In eighth grade, I tore my ACL while playing soccer. Six months later, with the help of a little ChapStick, (knee surgery), I was back on the soccer field. The next year, I re-tore my meniscus on the slopes, ultimately finding myself in a ski patrol toboggan with a guy named Ira. Four months later, I was as good as new; thanks to the help of my faithful friend (need I say it?). My worst chapped lips, however, were experienced freshman year. When I entered Scripps Ranch High School with its 3000+ students, I was no doubt a little fish in a big pond. Dad after day I felt that the walls, that were the hordes of my peers crowding the hallways, were closing in on me. I suffered as my lips cracked a little more every day, until they were eventually rock solid full of lip craters. ChapStick was the first call on my speed dial. With the help of my trustworthy amigo (my counselor, my family, and others), I pulled through. I made a change and ended up in a place, a school, where my lips are smooth once again, and the walls are merely structural components as they should be. ChapStick is perseverance when chapped lips are unavoidable. It is making the choice—to apply such a heavenly product—which makes one stronger.