February is always a special month for me. It’s Black History Month, it’s my birthday, and it’s also the time I celebrate the day I got fired—a new beginning disguised as a painful ending*. That moment set me on a path toward creating what you now know as The Erotics of Liberation.
Back in 2018, I had been working for a little over a year as a Business Analyst for a French company in Berlin. I had moved there in late 2016, slowly making a home (with hesitation) in a city that, at the time, felt both exciting and unfamiliar.
I loved Berlin. But I hated my job.
I hated working for a bunch of white men who felt hollow inside. I hated office politics. And beyond the usual racism, sexism, and insufferable boys-club jokes, I hated giving my most valuable asset—my time—to something that wasn’t nourishing the world or the life around me. Like any Sagittarius rising, I was desperate for meaning.
On February 1st, 2018, I confided in a friend: “This job is making me miserable and sick. I want out.” It was exhausting to pour all my energy and resources into building a life I couldn’t wait to escape on the weekends. Every investment I made pulled me further from my own soma, each one stacking the walls of my own prison even higher.
She poured me tea and asked me two questions that changed the course of my life:
