Written by Sam Reardon
Art by Sabrina Hadia Puha
I used to think fairy energy belonged exclusively to the youths: girls with glitter in their hair, dirt tattooing their skin from playing outside, mismatched socks, and pockets full of sea shells. But lately, I’ve grown to wonder if that lightness, that shimmer, might actually be a survival instinct. Not something we grow out of, but something we grow into.
I’m in my thirties. My back hurts. My planner overfloweth. I know too well the cyclical saga of grocery store budgets and burnout and hour-long commutes. But still, maybe in spite of the grind, I find myself reaching for glittery eyeshadow and flowy midi skirts. Lighting 57 candles I don’t need. Stewarding plants like they’re old friends (even if I kill them sometimes, sorry, friends).
Listen, it’s not a mid-life crisis. It’s a fucking call to arms. And by arms, of course, I mean I’m aging with softness and defiance: a vibrant, effervescent concoction I can only describe as “fairy energy.
After 30, women get typecast. We’re ushered into a societal monolith: no longer desirable to the traditional male gaze, no longer “interesting,” no longer novel. We see these attitudes in the way the media treats aging women, for example, and how those women respond with endless serums and surgeries to cover the inevitable progression of time and change. All the while, women IRL perform beige routines inside beige homes in the name of staying quietly visible. Visible, but compliant, quiet, not rocking the boat.
I armor myself with the very things the world calls frivolous: glitter, tattoos, and a spirit full of equal parts joy and fury. I combat the myth that aging means seriousness, complacency, and a rote, neurotically painful existence.
I say, “Hell no.” I won’t bend and I won’t break to the call of the beige. I armor myself with the very things the world calls frivolous: glitter, tattoos, and a spirit full of equal parts joy and fury. I combat the myth that aging means seriousness, complacency, and a rote, neurotically painful existence. I’ll wield my joy like a glimmering pink sword.
I reclaim lightness as power at 35 through acts of practical magic. You can call it “self care” if you must, but I see these caring rituals as grounded and less prescriptive. It’s in the Sunday morning eye masks and sipping rose herbal tea while donning a fucking gorgeous kaftan. It’s in the meals made with my own hands for my friends and it’s in the beach-scented lip gloss on my nightstand. Intentionality is the key to these rituals. Because it takes resilience to stay soft in a damn hard world. To look in the mirror and say out loud, “Like me. Love me. Hold me. I’m beautiful.” It’s a love spell.
I combat the myth that aging means seriousness, complacency, and a rote, neurotically painful existence.
Society? The old guard? The secret haters hiding behind the screen of an iphone? They’d rather you cave to cynicism and shut up. That way, you don’t resist through rest or living loudly. But rest is resistance. Joy is rebellion. Fantasy is fuel for the fire that burns down a stuffy, algorithm-driven world that wants to keep you loud when no one is listening and quiet when you need to speak up. Choosing softness and joy doesn’t make you naive. It makes you fucking free.
Fairy energy is joy, rebellion, lust for life, and spirituality woven together with shimmering needles. The energy to be fairy-like is not really about age. It’s an attitude. An alignment. A state of being. A kind of currency that gives you the space to be creative.
There is no checklist for magic. Maybe magic is protest. Maybe it’s art. Maybe it’s showing up to hot yoga. Maybe it’s a long cry or a cathartic post or a shirt that screams “TRANSPHOBES FUCKING SUCK.” Whatever it is, don’t label your magic “good” or “bad.” Don’t judge your joy and your hopefulness in some faux moral contest. Your magic isn’t performative; it’s what allows you to connect to joy, to purpose, to your one damn life.
As fun as flowing skirts and glitter are, for me, embodying fairy energy mostly has to do with fighting my fear with my curiosity. It’s knowing that only I have the power to reinvent myself, even in—especially in—my mid-thirties, and not calcify into beigeness out of fear of the unknown. Sometimes that means tossing the planner aside—not to bail on life, but to make space for random side quests like making art on the floor, spontaneously adventuring to my local free little library, or just taking a few moments to count my breaths.
Of course, not everyone approves of my fairy philosophy on life. Critics say I’m unserious, that I don’t act “grown-up” enough, bills notwithstanding. One friend once scoffed when I joked about wanting to learn roller skating instead of buying a house by 30 (not entirely a joke). I could sulk, but I laugh at their critiques instead.
Age like a garden: twisting, beautiful, contradictory, overgrown, feral, alive.
That attention means I’m still seen, still alive, still resisting. The same people who mock my silliness, scoff at my breezy attitude? I wouldn’t trade places with them, and so I reject their criticism not via anger, as I may have done in the past, but via amusement.
Aging with fairy energy means carrying a spark people can’t place. I’m turning 36, but strangers often assume I’m younger considering my service jobs and lack of “traditional milestones.” Family and colleagues don’t always understand, and society—with its metrics of promotions, mortgages, and Roth IRAs—would likely call me a failure.
But where they see flop, I see freedom, dreams, and self-authorship. I reject the notion that I must tie my worth to paper. Radical to some, but that’s how I become older, with laughter and dancing and refusing to give up the spark within.
An older woman once told me, as I reflected on my recent graduation, “I wish I’d done that when I was younger.” Okay, but why not now? Why not go back to school? Wear a damn tube top? Chase your dreams? Take up space?
Refuse to shrink. Shimmer instead. Age like a garden: twisting, beautiful, contradictory, overgrown, feral, alive.
About the Author:
Sam Reardon (she/her) is a writer & librarian based in Atlanta. She explores creativity, identity, and resilience via lifestyle essays and editorial work. You can support her directly at CashApp: $SamWritten