Arriving in Baja with lots of baggage (not the Samsonite kind, the emotional kind), I found myself surrounded by my ilk, two-dozen 60ish professionals with their share of rollaboards (and a few steamer trunks) full of “stuff”. And it didn’t take long for most of us to unpack, the first “circle” revealing the women’s fears of invisibility and the men’s dread of irrelevance. I had done enough research on MEA to expect this level of intimacy, a baring of souls to perfect strangers, each of us seeking purpose in midlife or support in our transitions. What I did not expect was to become physically and emotionally intimate with one of my compadres.
It happened on our fifth night together after days of playful and flirtatious banter. Overcome with a passion fueled by the raw emotion unleashed by the MEA experience, I found myself naked under the stars with Sophia. “I didn’t come here for this, Luc”, she said, panting with desire as she removed her dress, sharing her beautiful body without a hint of inhibition. What followed was a night that neither of us will ever forget, a night that could have been nothing more than a fling in Mexico, a night that would change both of us forever.
That was three years (and more than 30 rendezvous) ago, both of us having returned to what we call our “other lives”, crisscrossing the continent to carry on a torrid love affair and building our own life together. And, while we continue to discover much about ourselves and each other as we add chapters to The Book of Luc and Sophia, one revelation stands out….we have discovered The Fountain of Youth. Benjamin Button has nothing on us when it comes to turning back the clock, regaining our love of living out loud, reclaiming our bodies and reigniting our long dormant sexuality.
Granting each other permission to be truly open about our respective needs, desires, fantasies and proclivities, we have discovered a whole new world of intimate pleasure, often saying about our histories, “if that was supposed to be intimacy, we were doing it wrong”. We train for each rendezvous like a professional athlete trains for a championship event, each seeking to ensure that we look good naked and that we are at peak performance to please the other…the byproduct being two vital and fit AF lovers….and all you have to do is google “orgasms and longevity” to learn how frequent good sex improves your healthspan.
And, while the sex is unrivaled in our experience (“wild” doesn’t begin to describe it), the emotional intimacy that comes with giving of oneself so completely is life-altering. We love and we laugh, sharing a vernacular peppered with sophomoric humor that is uniquely our own. We are kids again, but instead of concealing our fear, anxiety and insecurity from each other, we talk openly about it, each helping the other through the inevitable rough patches.
The saying goes “you need three things in life…something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to” and we have become all three to each other, introducing new purpose and excitement to our lives at a moment when we thought our lives had been lived. We often express gratitude that “we found this before the end”, marveling at how beautiful it is to find love at a time when we’ve developed the emotional intelligence and maturity to “do it right”.
Yes, we are younger than we were when we arrived in Baja, leaving our baggage at the end of that dirt road and repacking our suitcases with freedom, love, purpose, vitality, intimacy, gratitude and joy. We found the previously elusive ability to be truly present, in the moment, often saying “I don’t know where this is going, but I am having the time of my life”.
-Luc and Sophia
Luc and Sophia are MEA alums who arrived in Baja in search of purpose in midlife transition and came away with much, much more. Their new life together has not only changed them forever, it has made them young again.