When I walked into Jessica Weiser, MD’s office at the New York Dermatology Group on that January evening, I was scared. Like, shaking-and-shivering terrified. I asked fellow Refinery29 beauty editor Alix Tunell to come along, hold my hand, and Snapchat the entire procedure. Dr. Weiser prepped my lips with numbing cream before meticulously injecting both my top and bottom lips with one whole syringe of Restylane-L. (The -L, by the way, stands for lidocaine, a numbing agent in the gel. It's what you want if you're a first-timer or crybaby.) After each prick of the needle, Dr. Weiser stuck her gloved fingers in my mouth to shape and mold the gel. It sounds painful, but it's really not. I was so numb that all I felt was a tiny bit of pressure, kind of like when you have a head cold.All the poking and prodding took less than 45 minutes, and I walked home feeling high on life. My lips looked incredible (swollen, but incredible), and the whole thing hurt much, much less than I had imagined. The doc sent me home with an ice pack and told me that my new lips could last as long as a year, or as short as two to three months, depending on how my body metabolized the hyaluronic acid. I prayed that I'd be the first person whose fillers magically lasted forever.I was madly in love with my new lips from the moment I got them. I actually shed a tear the first time I swiped on lipstick following my injections. Using muscle memory, I traced the bullet over where I thought my lips were, only to look in the mirror and discover I had covered about half the surface area. It was awesome. With fuller lips, I felt just a little bit prettier and more confident as I left the house each day (and who doesn't want that?).But the strangest thing occurred to me a few days after the procedure. Even though my lips had quite literally doubled in size, nobody seemed to notice. Not even my own father over FaceTime. When I brought it up in casual conversation, the reactions ranged from “Really?” to “You can’t even tell!” Yes, I know, technically, that's a sign of good work. Just about every derm and plastic surgeon would agree: People don't notice a job well done. But part of me wanted my new lips to be a topic of conversation. So I made them one — on Instagram, on Snapchat, on Facebook. If you followed me, you were hearing about my fillers and seeing my kissy-faces. And I found that the more open I was, the more people responded and shared their own insecurities with me. It seemed like everyone was curious about the world of injectables, but felt like admitting to it was breaking some social taboo.