When Your Soul Won't Stop Knocking

The morning after my 40th birthday, I woke up in a new apartment with a visceral feeling I can only describe as death. Not thoughts about death, or wanting to die, but an actual feeling in and around me. I thought it was the hangover talking. I thought it was the anxiety of just moving. I thought it was the stress of building a new business.

But even after the alcohol cleared my system, after my boxes were unpacked and my life arranged neatly in its new cabinets and drawers, the weight remained. It lingered like an unwanted smell on a humid day, following me everywhere I went.

Five-plus years later, I know with full certainty: the energy I felt was my soul banging on the front door saying, let me in. We need to talk.

I kept the door closed, but that didn't stop the conversation from happening.

Over the next several years, I found myself bombarded with relentless questions that felt like an interrogation. What the fuck are you doing? Not just today, but with this life. When it's all said and done, how will you look back on it? Is this how you're going to live your life?

I've often been told I'm too hard on myself. The truth is, I was living so far out of alignment with my core values and integrity — and I knew it.

I'm one of those who learns the hard way. I'll avoid making the necessary changes and instead exhaust myself trying to rearrange the world around me. A new man, a new workout, a new career, a new wardrobe, new friends.

But this voice outside the door wouldn't let me escape into my usual distractions.

Finally, around 43, I reached a point of no return. I opened the door and took a long, honest look in the mirror. It was the first time I didn't turn away from what I saw.

To say I didn't like what I saw would be the understatement of my lifetime. And frankly, I was out of excuses — and tired of my own bullshit.

The process was uncomfortable as hell. There's a reason most of us avoid this kind of deep self-examination. It's easier to stay busy, to keep moving, to assume we'll figure it out later.

I was humbled beyond measure. And five years later, I can see it was the greatest gift I could've given myself.

Through the regret, doubt, and fear, I came to understand something simple but profound: this is life. We are constantly seeing ourselves with new eyes, clearing out old stories to make room for what's true now.

My forties gave me clarity on the questions I had avoided for decades. What kind of person do I want to be? What would it look like to live a life I could shamelessly own?

Around that time, I had been reading books like Pussy: A Reclamation, Existential Kink, Goddesses Never Age — and was inspired to be in my body. Not necessarily sexually, but with presence, intentionality, and ritual.

The questions started to change. What does it mean to be fully alive? How can I live a life that feels full and turned on?

That's when I realized: the knocking had stopped. I had opened the door — and I heard the answer.

I wanted to live an erotic life.

Eroticism is about desire as life force — the fundamental drive that makes us create, connect, and feel fully alive. It's not confined to bedrooms. It's about bringing that same intensity and presence to every aspect of life.

The unfortunate reality is that most of us spend decades not consciously living. We stay in jobs that drain us, relationships that shrink us, patterns that numb us — because they're familiar.

But eventually, the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of change. And that's often what wakes us up.

For me, living an erotic life means feeling into it all. The stimulation of city lights. The aliveness of my children's words. The warmth of my coffee as I inhale its scent. Eroticism is experiencing it all — not mindlessly consuming.

Five years later, I can see how that uncomfortable awakening at 40 was the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to stop sleepwalking through my own life and start making conscious choices about how I wanted to show up in the world.

That midlife reckoning wasn't a crisis to survive. It was an invitation to truly begin living.

There's still time. And midlife — with all its uncomfortable-ness and inconvenient truths — might just be the exact right time to begin.