It was New Year’s Eve, 2006. Three votive candles flickered before me, their light soft against a velvet-black sky outside the window. I asked myself the questions that had been echoing for years: Am I happy? Can I live in my own reality? Do I have the courage to break the contract I made at twenty-two—to step into my autonomy and thrive outside of my marriage?

For thirty-four years, my identity was entwined with a man the world knew well—but few knew the woman behind the scenes. For the last thirteen of those years, I pleaded for closeness, for the tearing back of our protective skins to bare our true natures. But the intimacy I longed for remained just out of reach. I had hidden myself behind a self-imposed mask of composure, a “Mona Lisa” smile that concealed my pain and diminished my truth.

That night, in the stillness before the new year, my heart spoke clearly: I would rather be alone than continue to compromise my soul. An inner voice whispered, it is time to let Carlos be who he is in this incarnation—and for me to seek God, ecstasy, and divine love on my own.

Through tears and smiles, I began the shedding. I had been the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Santana Management, raising three children, managing our foundation, and serving others—but now, my work was to serve my own spirit. I was discovering the woman beneath the roles, the one who no longer needed to hide her light or filter her existence through another’s gaze.

Now, almost twenty years have passed since that moment, and I know that nothing is permanent—not love nor grief, not joy nor sorrow. Everything ends; everything begins anew. This is the story of that ending—and of the beginning that followed.