Fleeting Beauty
Image Courtesy: Instagram
Why do we turn everything into something beautiful? Why do we romanticize thrift store clothes, dimly lit gas stations, or the way someone looks when they’re lost in thought? These moments aren’t inherently significant, yet we insist on finding beauty in them, as if we’re constantly searching for a thread of meaning to keep things from slipping into nothingness.
I first noticed this tendency when I reconnected with an ex-boyfriend I hadn’t spoken to in years. I told him I often thought about him, even through the small, seemingly inconsequential moments he posted on social media. I felt connected to him, despite the distance. He told me he hadn’t thought about us at all. His indifference hit me hard. It was then that I realized I was romanticizing the everyday—the beauty of something small that shouldn’t have mattered, but I clung to it. Even fairy memorabilia, something trivial to most, feels like the most beautiful thing to me. It’s a symbol of escapism.
This constant need to make the world beautiful feels exhausting. On one hand, it drives my creativity. On the other, it becomes a coping mechanism—an overanalysis to feel safe in chaos. It’s blissful, but it’s also a lie.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
It’s in these moments, when I lose myself, that hypervigilance sets in. I search desperately for meaning to tether myself back to something real. I search like a toddler sucking their thumb—an instinct, a comfort. It’s a paradox.
I kind of came to this conclusion after rewatching 500 Days of Summer. Tom, the protagonist, is on a quest for love, but it’s a distorted version. He wants it to be everything, to be the answer. He sees Summer as the perfect embodiment of beauty—someone who completes him, someone who is both a muse and a solution. But in his obsession, he mistakes her for beauty itself. He even says, “I love how she makes me feel, like anything’s possible, or like life is worth it.” His pursuit of validation distorts everything around him. There’s a bitterness in this search for something that can never fully be captured., i It is fleeting. To give it meaning, he romanticizes and puts Summer on a pedestal.
This constant search for meaning is exhausting. I’ll never truly be satisfied. Even in my work at Strike Magazine, I push myself to create something beautiful, but this standard feels distorted. The perfectionism that others see in me reflects this inner battle. There’s always a voice questioning whether any of it matters.
Beauty isn’t about capturing something permanent; it’s about making meaning out of the fleeting. We romanticize the temporary because, in doing so, we assert that it matters. Beauty, in its fragile form, convinces us the world isn’t just an endless stream of nothingness. Even if it’s only for a moment, it’s ours, and that brief sense of significance is enough to keep going. The pursuit of beauty is a way of holding on when everything else feels out of our control.
Strike Out,
Jessica Giraldo
Saint Augustine
Editor: Maya Kayyal
College senior Jessica Giraldo is an English major with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Digital Media Production and Journalism. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Strike Magazine STA and a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the national English Honor Society. She hopes to become a columnist or professor, using her experience in publishing and media to guide future writers and publications.
