This book is my autobiography. Through the different chapters I will present myself traveling across time and space carrying not only my genetic makeup but also the imprint of everyone who has touched my personal history during its different moments.
While traveling, I went through critical moments, those where to follow my path in life I had to leave behind everything. At age seven, I left my home in the countryside and went to live—for ten months a year, for the next ten years—at a girls’ boarding school in the capital. At age twenty-one, I put aside my social and professional life to become a lay Catholic minister in a secular institute. In 1980, at age forty-two my family and I migrated from my country of origin, Cuba, to the United States where we became political exiles.
And at age sixty-seven, my husband and I gave away all the goodies we had accumulated after our immigration into the United States, sold our house, and went to Florida for our retirement. In all and each one of those opportunities, I just took with me my memories and personal experiences. Just what I was. And from just what I was, I began to be again until who I am today.
Like every human being, throughout my seventy-two years of life I have gone through transitions and through severe crises. In this autobiography I discuss some of them. Like the impact in my country of origin and in my family of the drastic socio-economic and cultural changes that began on January 1, 1959; or the challenge of living for nine years as a consecrated lay Catholic minister in a society heavily indoctrinated by the Cuban government with its atheist Marxist-Leninist philosophy; or marrying an ex-political prisoner and trying to raise our son for six and a half years with a different set of values from those of the socio-political system; or at age forty-two leaving Cuba and becoming an immigrant professional who had to learn not only a new language but also academic courses so my previous knowledge and professional experience could become meaningful and productive in the United States.
In the chapters that follow, I describe my periods of confusion, my periods of loneliness, my periods of depression, and my periods of anger. I relate my efforts to overcome solitariness, my efforts to find a reason to fight back, and my efforts to become who I am.
No doubt that the process of writing this autobiography has brought a valuable gift to my life. By looking back, I have cried repressed tears; I have healed my psychological and spiritual hurts, pains, and distresses, and have given closure to many unresolved issues.
Finally, this book has helped me to put together my different ego stages and components—not as a sum but as an integrated whole where all and each one of them easily matches with each other to give a perfect and meaningful portrait of my real self.
February, 2011.