THE SEARCH FOR LIFE AS IT'S MEANT TO BE

Lauren Deville

I’ve never really liked beauty magazines. I’ve never liked magazines at all, really, because when I used to spend hours perusing them, I’d end up feeling disgusting, like I’d just eaten two entire meals comprised of nothing but gumdrops: time had passed, but it had passed in an utterly useless way.

This, in fact, is one of my biggest hang-ups: I can’t stand to feel as though I’m wasting time. I worship efficiency, and as a result, I am most depressed when I can’t think of anything valuable to do with my time. I choose my daily activities, mostly subconsciously, on a sort of value point system: the more points I earn in a given day, the better I feel about myself. Through my point system I’m searching for a life better than the slipshod one I so often lead.

Beauty magazines are on the same search, I think, but in a more obvious way (to me, anyway): ostensibly selling mere clothing and makeup, the magazines are really selling an entire life. They are about beauty and glamour, but then again, they’re not, because beauty and glamour are not the ends in themselves.

I remember nights when I thought I looked perfect; several were (for independent reasons) some of the most miserable nights of my life. In fact, I had tried so hard to look perfect on those nights because it was the one thing I could control; I was trying to affect external events by how I looked, and it could not be done.

What does the beauty magazine say? Try harder. Buy this shade of lip gloss, and everyone will want you. Buy these clothes and look like this woman. But no, there’s a deeper message: you can have her life, this life of romance and adventure promised only to those with a pore-less complexion.

It’s just a variation of what I try to do with my efficiency game: it’s all about control in search of the better life. Arranging for the life you want. That life will, let’s face it, always elude you. Yet it sometimes lingers so tantalizingly close, so close you think you’ll have it if you just reach out one more time. Except sometimes it so fully slips through your fingers that you abandon all hope and reach for the tub of Ben and Jerry’s (if you’re most young women) or a mocha and a nearby journal (if you’re me).

I had a bad day today. Most of it was in my head, but I felt the need to be alone with God, and for some reason, I felt the urge to buy a beauty magazine. Why? I’m still not sure.

I was re-watching "Elizabethtown," one of my favorite movies, and flipping through Elle, and searching for something—but for something that I knew could not be found there.

It’s almost ridiculous, the contrast between high-fashion magazines like that and the real world, where people wear sweatpants to the grocery store (uh, me included) and don’t even bother to hide their flaws, because they’ve come to the point of either acceptance or resignation. The images in magazines like that awaken desires they cannot fulfill—desires to be that beautiful, sure, but more than that, because I know that wouldn’t be enough, wouldn’t come nearly close to what it is that I’m actually seeking.

And what is that? Life as it’s meant to be, of course. Life in a world where everyone really is that beautiful, where youth springs eternal and girls twirl barefoot in the waves of the ocean in the arms of their dearest love, where everyone is elegant and wealthy (and happy as a result—the message is really about happiness). In this meant-to-be world, every moment is spent and spent well, there is purpose and fulfillment in our every activity, we are doing precisely what we are meant to do.

So the covers of these magazines promise things like "Get gorgeous in 30 days! Win back your ex! Take control of your life! Lose that flab! Land your dream job!" And it works; people buy, because the writers are playing on one of the most universal truths about humans.

We are all searching for heaven.

—In her search for life as it’s meant to be, Lauren Deville, Tucson, Arizona, has volunteered in Oaxaca, Mexico, traveled widely, and since completing college has decided to apply for medical school. She is currently a shift supervisor at Starbucks.