Autobiography

The Gift of a Simple Life

By Fresia Nora Robledo Poma

Once, during a therapy session, I was asked where my strength came from. At first, I didn’t know how to answer, until I began to speak about my illustrious ancestors who inspired me since my childhood when my uncles would tell stories I wanted to be part of. Deep down, I wanted them to speak about me with the same passion, enthusiasm, and admiration with which they evoked our ancestors.

When I recall my childhood, it doesn’t surprise me to have these airs of superiority, because among my glorious ancestors were General Poma, who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on his campaign to Egypt, and a great-great-grandfather named Napolcón, who, with his

father, came to Merán (Salta, Argentina) to colonize the New World at the end of the 19th century. We can also count great artists, members of the Vatican Swiss Guard, a president of the Swiss canton of Ticino, and a cardinal from Venice who was considered papal. Listening again and again to the stories of these heroes in the family’s intellectual and cultural settings, I believe that little by little, the importance of having a mission to be recognized, to have fame, and to possess power, was carved within me.

Our family, the Poma (which in Italian translates to "apple"), has its own coat of arms, featuring two rampant lions and an apple tree in the shield’s field. My great-grandfather, Napoleón Poma, was an architect and came from a wealthy family of professionals, which in the late 19th century represented not only a high economic level but also cultural and political influence, and therefore, social power. He arrived in Argentina with his father, Paolo Poma, who had financed and built part of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

A closer ancestor, frequently mentioned in our family gatherings, was my mother's grandfather, Carlos Poma Fantoni, who, along with his brothers, held strategic positions in the society of Metán. He motivated other wealthy families to bring the town the installation of running water, electricity, the first telephone line, the creation of the hospital, the foundation of the public library, road construction, the establishment of neighborhoods, and more schools. Through various ventures, he managed to multiply the family fortune.

How could my child’s mind remain indifferent to such wealth, expansion, dedication, and generosity? I always wanted to hear more. I remember staying at the table with the adults, attentive and expectant, while my cousins went off to play.

My father and mother represented the union of two cultures, the Argentine and the Chilean, and of two social classes: nobility and the people; two economies: wealth and poverty; and two educational levels: nearly illiterate and university-educated with honors... It seems like the plot of a South American soap opera (and I was, as a child, an avid reader of Corín Tellado’s romantic novels)... but without a happy ending. I feel that my life is like that too: in extremis. Either everything or nothing, black or white; with many difficulties in finding a middle ground. I either idealize people or ignore them.

The Gift of a Simple Life

My mother dedicated her whole life to studying and caring for others. She pursued a law degree and became a child defender in the courts at a very young age. Perhaps her experience with polio from childhood pushed her to study, and she had a very recognized professional life, first in Metán and then in Salta, in an era, the 1950s, when most women were housewives or, at most, teachers. Perhaps due to her limited experience with men, she

became captivated by a charming and flirtatious man who publicly courted her without shame—this was my father. Practically illiterate, she helped him study and complete his education. My mother earned a lot of money and saved; she owned properties and houses. She inherited a highly sought-after property from the unmarried aunts she cared for while studying law, located in front of the Municipality of Córdoba. She was ahead of her time, as, being single and thirty years old, she adopted my sister Natalia.

My father, thanks to my mother’s position, had entered a completely unfamiliar environment for him, surrounded by wealthy personalities, professionals, and people with political and economic power. He was Chilean, of indigenous origin, the only illegitimate son who had to take his father’s place in more ways than one. He was a miner without education, and he came to Salta seeking a new life. At that time, he was married—an arrangement my mother didn’t know about when they married—and had two children, whose existence I only learned about on Facebook when my father passed away in 2012.

My Childhood: A Hell for Me, and More So for Others

From a young age, I showed promise. My aunt S. says that, at two years old, I had a vocabulary and language skills that attracted attention wherever I went. A doctor told my parents that he had never seen such a communication ability at my age. This had many consequences in my life, such as when, at six years old, the school principal called my aunts to complain that the teacher couldn’t give class because I wouldn’t stop whistling and singing. Without a doubt, I was meant to attract attention.

But it seems not everything was so normal, happy, and joyful. My family had and still has many secrets, some well-kept and others impossible to hide. My mother spent a lot of time away from home, and my father stayed with us, abusing the young girls who, like babies, took care of me. My family recently told me that my father also mistreated and abused the minors that my mother legally sheltered at home while they waited to be assigned to a foster family.

Finally, when I was two years old, my father was imprisoned for abusing another minor in the family (a second cousin of mine), and my mother got him out of jail by convincing the child’s mother and grandmother to retract the accusation. That’s when my mother’s eyes were opened, and it was also the beginning of her own downfall.

In November 1973, she had gallbladder surgery, and at forty-one, she developed a postoperative infection that my uncles, both doctors, still cannot explain. My aunts always said that she couldn’t bear the situation she was living with my father. I lost her when I was

three years old, and soon after, I lost my father, who disappeared from the family scene. I wouldn’t see him again until many years later.

Thus, still very young, I left my house, my uncles, and cousins, my city, and the environment I knew, and I was moved to nine hundred kilometers away to live with other relatives who would take care of me: a seventy-year-old widowed grandmother and a forty-five-year-old single aunt, my mother’s older sister. In the next house lived my mother’s other sister, married with two children. Now, I belonged to a family made up of four adults and four children.

By the age of five, I was already walking alone in the street; I would go to the neighbor’s house and ring the doorbell to meet my friend L., who was three years old. The neighborhood was my home; the shopkeepers were my friends: the butcher, the baker, the florist, the hairdresser, the greengrocer, the seamstress, the newsstand owner, the supermarket workers, the shoemaker, the dentist, the pharmacist... It was my territory, and I wandered around as if it were my house, chatting with everyone. I remember that at ten years old, I managed the flower shop! I loved preparing bouquets while the owner took a nap and left the shop.

In reality, so much interaction with so many people, circulating through such a wide space, gave me a sense of belonging, but it prevented me from touching what was inside me and what was happening at home. I searched outside for what I couldn’t find inside. Because there, at home, I felt I didn’t have a place. At first, I slept in my grandmother’s room with my sister. My grandmother was a silent woman with a sad gaze. She had lost her husband when she was very young and had five children to care for. She had also recently lost one of her daughters.

From the age of three to twelve, I lived from March to November in Córdoba with my sister, my aunt, and my grandmother. And from December to February, I lived at another of my aunts’ homes with their four children, or at the house of Uncle C. and Aunt L., with four other children. During those three months, it was common for us to gather twenty-two people for lunch, dinner, or afternoon tea. I believe this has made my concept of family quite broad.

I grew up with my cousins as if they were my siblings and with my uncles as if they were my parents. But no one assumed parental roles. I did whatever I wanted, barked and bit anyone who crossed my path. There was no authority figure, no adult with the courage or patience to set limits. In the end, I felt that our dog, Peggy, was the only member of the family who gave me unconditional love. She was the only being I hugged and kissed. I didn’t want anyone to know how much I needed physical contact. Sometimes I pretended to be asleep when my grandmother approached because I knew she would cover me up.

Leading and Conquering Since Childhood

I had to be the center of any situation; it didn’t matter if it was for good or bad, the important thing was not to be indifferent to anyone. My specialty was leading the neighborhood gang. I told everyone what they had to do, what to play, the roles of each person...

They always asked me: "And now, what do we do?" Even C., who was the oldest of all. It was important to me to have control over my peers, though I derived even more pleasure from challenging the older ones, who were more difficult to dominate.

I completely lacked the smallest routine, like brushing my teeth, showering, or organizing my room. There was nothing there to teach me any habits. I didn’t have to take care of any household chores because everything was clean, my room was tidy, and meals were served. I never took charge of those things. My aunt S. tried, at least, to instill in me the habit of weekly cleaning, and I always rebelled whenever I could.

My personal hygiene was neglected. And I gorged myself on sweets; they called me "The Kiosk." At first, my grandmother gave me money to buy candies; later, when I ran out, I stole from her. This total lack of boundaries, along with the neglect in which I lived, led to all my baby teeth rotting. I was dragged to the dentist in front of our house, who extracted the decayed remains of my teeth without anesthesia while two adults held my hands and feet down in the chair, as my strength and rebellion made it hard to subdue me.

I understood from a very young age that it was difficult to stand out. I was the sixth of twelve cousins. I felt an intensely competitive environment around me, which shaped all my relationships from the start. We competed for the recognition, attention, and love of the adults. But being a niece didn’t hold the same weight as being a daughter, so I felt I had to make an extra effort whenever I had to share time with each of the families I lived with, depending on the season.

Then, my grandmother got sick with colon cancer, and my uncle bought a house in the neighborhood, close to ours. My aunt S. moved there with her husband and two children to care for my grandmother, and I, of course, joined the pack. My sister and my aunt N., the single one, stayed in the house where we had all lived before. The separation improved the relationship with my sister regarding our daily clashes, but I think we became strangers to each other; we could go days or weeks without seeing each other. She had a very close bond with our cousin C., who was the same age, and I felt quite envious of the complicit relationship they had when they were together.

Me, My Own Law, and Public Image

Between the freedom to indulge my whims that my grandmother allowed and the constant pursuit my aunt N. imposed on me, I came to the conclusion that I had to be my own law, my authority, my role model. I started an imaginary game: I had a father and a mother. And when I went to a friend’s birthday party, or when her parents picked me up by car, I would tell them I had to return home soon because my family was waiting for me. (In reality, sometimes my aunts didn’t even know I was at a birthday.) This lie to my friends helped me avoid the humiliation of not having a "normal" family, with a father and mother who cared about me. Public image was starting to seem important to me.

At six years old, I started going to the neighborhood’s most famous hairdresser. She was the one all the wealthy neighbors went to; even people from the city center came. At first, my aunts accompanied me and told the hairdresser how to cut my hair. This made me resent the bangs they insisted on leaving me with. When I looked in the mirror, I saw an old motorcycle helmet, which was always there, permanent. Until one day, when I was about nine years old, I started going to the hairdresser on my own, and I would cut off the bangs that covered half of my face and forced me to tilt my head. It was an act of self-assertion.

Every year at school, they conducted a full health check-up, including a vision exam, which revealed that I had myopia and astigmatism. However, the reports never reached my family: I wasn’t going to wear glasses! Impossible. I didn’t want to be the "four eyes" in a co-ed school, where there were boys I liked! It was very important not to seem pitiful, not to be humiliated, not to appear like a poor little thing. And in this sense, external aesthetic care has always been a priority for me. But I never cared about fashion; I only considered what suited me.

Another important topic was my legal situation. My father lost my custody when my mother died, probably due to his history of pedophilia and the misappropriation of my mother’s inheritance. Until I was eighteen, my aunt was my legal guardian, and I also had the minors’ advocate, whom I went to see at the courthouse; this made me feel important in my social circle, as I was the only one with such a distinguished guardian. Now, I understand the pitying and fearful looks from my classmates, terrified that I felt proud of having a minors’ advocate as my guardian, instead of a father and mother like everyone else. From a very young age, I had already decided to tell any detail of my life as a fantastic story, and this guardian suited me perfectly.

I had to visit him regularly; luckily, he was a good man. He received me in the tallest building in the city, a very luxurious place. The walls of his office, lined with wood, were filled with shelves of golden books. He welcomed me wearing his usual suit with a vest, very elegant, and would walk, perfumed, to sit behind a large desk. All of this made me feel grown-up. I was the only one of my friends who took the bus alone over such long

distances, and besides, I was going to the courthouse! This way, I made my friends believe that my life was very interesting and glamorous, a habit with which I still continue to speculate.

An Undercover Kidnapping

From the age of three to nine, I only saw my father for a few days during my summers in Metán, and each year he came with a different woman. I would sit on his lap in the car, and he would let me drive on dirt roads; there was something in his gesture that made me feel uncomfortable, although he acted as if I were the one in charge, as if I decided where we were going because I was driving.

But the summer I turned ten, everything was different. My father came to pick me up, as he did every year, but this time, he didn’t take me back to my grandmother’s. He had planned my kidnapping, and after a few hours, no one knew where we were. I think it would be more appropriate to call it an undercover kidnapping, as I now understand it as an attempt by my father to give me a family, obviously from a very peculiar and controversial concept of family.

The time I spent with my father and his partner felt like an intense and extended coexistence with him, whom I had seen only a few random days in the summer. It was the only time, since my mother died, that I spent so many consecutive days with him. He took me to live with a woman and her daughter, my age, who I luckily liked from the first moment.

At first, everything seemed normal, but gradually things started to complicate. It was the beginning of summer, and thus the beginning of the holidays: there were still three months ahead. If I asked him when I was going back home, he would tell me: "This is your home. We’re going to be a family, and I’m going to stabilize myself. Now I have a business..." He had rented a store where he sold candies and gifts. The name of the store was "Fresi-Nor," coincidentally the initial syllables of my two names. This surprised me. Suddenly, I had the feeling that I was important to my father, perhaps this time he had good intentions, and this idea of being a family could be true. Sometimes, I feel I’ve inherited that same vocation of selling sweets and gifts in exchange for love.

It didn’t take long for me to learn about my father’s difficulty in keeping promises and the distance between his fantasies and reality. There were constant arguments and shouting with his partner. She, fortunately, had the strength to defend herself and to defend us, her daughter and me. B. was a lawyer, like my mother. She worked in the mornings and afternoons. We saw her almost at dinnertime, and from that moment on, scenes of shouting

and violence followed day after day without respite. There was always a reason for the yelling and fighting.

I lived in a constant state of anxiety during the day and with a mixture of anger, fear, and excitement at night, not knowing what would happen next. I wanted B. to punish my father for being immoral, for lying, and for my father to act differently the next day. But in the end, that never happened, and everything was repeated day after day. I was used to managing myself in violent environments, alert to know what strategy to follow. And this time, I felt like C.’s protector, B.’s daughter. Although we were both ten years old, our personalities were almost opposites, and I took charge.

For Appearances: The Image of a Happy Family

My father would take us out every day, from morning until B. came home. We went to banks, rivers, or the pools of his friends. We always escaped with many different people, especially women with husbands who were working at that time, and who had children about our age. The idea was that while the adults were together, the children would be too. But not me. I kept an eye on what my father was doing. He never missed an opportunity to be physically close to these women. Casually, he would rest his head on one’s lap or be in the pool, pressed against another. Everything was done in broad daylight, and he did it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Of course, I never missed an opportunity to tell B. that very night, and a fuss would ensue. Now, I think about how risky my behavior was: I was with strangers, including my father, with no one to defend me. But I wasn’t aware of that. It was as if I felt that I could handle any situation... and to this day, I do.

Meanwhile, my mother’s family had hired a private detective to look for me. It took about a month.

When I returned home, I still have some blurry memories, but I can’t forget the joy of seeing my grandmother again. Of course, from that moment on, she refused to let my father visit. However, he managed to find me without my maternal family’s knowledge two more times.

My grandmother, the person I feel loved me the most, passed away on October 7, 1985, one day before my fifteenth birthday, a highly anticipated celebration in South American culture because it’s a presentation to society. Like a mini-wedding, but without a partner, though with a dress, dancing, dinner, candies, garlands, glitter, etc.

Naturally, there was no party; there was too much pain. I was coming back from school when I was told. There were no tears in my eyes, I wasn’t allowed to see her, and I couldn’t

say goodbye or touch her one last time. I froze; I think that was the moment I decided not to cry anymore.

I don’t know if my father found out about her death, but the next day, my birthday, they sent me to school as if nothing had happened. And there was my father. He showed up at the nun’s school where I studied. The nuns didn’t know that my grandmother had restricted his visits, I didn’t say anything, and now that she had passed away, they assumed I wanted to see my father. We met in the visitor’s room and talked during recess. Then he left, and I didn’t hear from him again until the next break time. I just remember he said: “Happy birthday.”

A Sad and Silent Teenager

At eleven, I was transferred to a new school, and I remember it as quite a traumatic experience for me. I had been in a mixed public school since I was three, attending the same class as my cousins and also with my friends from the neighborhood. So, I went from being the troublemaker and the dramatic one in elementary school to becoming almost mute in high school.

I was enrolled in a Catholic school run by the Sisters of the Mercedarian Order of the Child Jesus, where my sister was finishing her last year of high school. The change to an all-girls, religious, private school was a complete shift in environment. In elementary school, I experienced joy, diversity, chaos, and masculinity, in a space where it was easy for me to interact with boys and assert my own masculinity. In the new school, everything was confined, restricted, serious, orderly, disciplined, rigid, and uniformed. I also discovered my difficulty in relating to so many women, as it was just girls. There was no escape: I found them childish, slow, stupid, fragile, envious, snobbish, sycophantic, obedient... All of that represented, in my mind, femininity. I felt powerless, as if in this environment, I couldn’t express myself as I truly was.

I remember the feeling of being cold every morning because at 7:00 AM, we would start by raising the flag and praying the Angelus, standing still. The first shock came on my first day of class. My reputation as a troublemaker preceded me, and during recess, my sister came up to me and said, “I don’t want any principal, nun, or teacher to call my attention about your behavior because I’ll deny you as my sister, I won’t recognize you. So, you have to behave absolutely well, don’t make me look bad.” And that’s how I fell into deep sadness. I hid, didn’t speak, and didn’t express myself like I did in elementary school; my adolescence was characterized by making myself invisible. This lasted from eleven to fifteen years old.

At fifteen, I felt so bad that one day, when I came home during the afternoon nap when everyone was sleeping, I went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and held it to my heart. Although I didn’t end up stabbing myself, I still remember that deep darkness in my body, feeling that life had no meaning if I wasn’t loved by an important person in my life.

As soon as I entered the school, the principal and the faculty quickly referred me to the school counselor, a young woman who had just become a mother and handled difficult cases. I clearly remember that in each session, for what I think was a year, I would sit in front of her and stare without saying a single word. I never spoke in her presence, and she grew tired of asking. From then on, in every tutoring session, I would arrive at her office, sit down, and she would continue attending to her paperwork. The bell would ring, I would stand up, and leave. I never understood why the counselor didn’t talk to the nuns about what was happening. I imagine she wanted to keep her job, or maybe she thought I would speak one day, or perhaps she didn’t know what to do with me and didn’t want to admit it.

Interestingly, today I’m a school counselor by profession. And sometimes, I think I’ve embraced this career to make up for that moment in my life and to help other girls the way I would have liked to be helped. I would have liked her to see beyond my rebellious and proud attitude.

Embarrassment, Religion, and Femininity

Soon, shame, religion, and femininity entered my life. Before long, I became an extremely sad, silent, and withdrawn girl, completely isolated. I would sit at the back or at the front of the class and not speak to anyone; some classmates would approach and try to talk to me or sit next to me, and I wouldn’t let them.

It took me a long time to fit in with the new environment. I needed to understand how everything worked, the structure, the system, the characters, and who "ruled." I identified all the subgroups in class, who was friends with whom, who got along or didn’t, who was worth approaching and who wasn’t.

The toughest period I remember in school was from twelve to fourteen. My classmates saw me so sad that they threw me a surprise party at N.'s house, one of them, and I felt so embarrassed, uncomfortable, and overwhelmed that I couldn’t express gratitude. I was angry with them for their generosity; I felt indebted. Deep down, I felt undeserving. Until then, no one in our class had organized a surprise party for anyone, and I felt that privilege as a punishment, putting me in the spotlight of pity. I remember them all shouting in surprise, and I, with a scared face, unable to respond to all that expectation. So much selfless attention, just expressed through affection, was completely new to me. At that

moment, I felt my orphanhood, my profound lack. The gesture of kindness reached the core of my wound, to the deep void, to the hollow. It’s a bottomless black hole, impossible to fill, and every time a bit of affection falls into it, it reminds me how empty it is.

Luckily, during that dry stage, M. appeared, an eighteen-year-old novice, kind, affectionate, and happy. Without asking for permission, she entered my life completely, sat in the empty bench that had accompanied me until then, and her presence completely changed my way of being in the class: with my classmates, with the subjects, with the teachers, with the principal (who was her mentor). It presented a rebirth. After my grandmother, she was the first person I felt the most like an unconditional love. Her joy for life was contagious, and I don’t know exactly why, but she adopted an attitude of protection and care toward me.

I remember the small room in the convent where we gathered, a gray, austere place with no decorations. But when she entered the room, I felt it light up. Her company became a place to rest emotionally from the anger, violence, and aggression. Finally, I felt that someone was taking care of me, offering me a constant routine, affection, limits, order, and joy for life. Every afternoon, I spent my time in the convent studying with her, and when I look back, I see that our relationship allowed me to begin a path of emotional stability that I continue to walk today.

M. was only three years older than me, but I felt like she was an older sister, almost a mother. Since I met her, she helped me see my classmates with compassion; and since I loved crafts so much, I created miniature greeting cards with tiny details that had famous quotes from Reader's Digest magazine, which would arrive at our house periodically. Depending on what I could intuit was happening to a classmate, I would write a phrase and leave it on their desk during recess.

At first, no one knew who was sending the little cards. I liked creating that mystery, like an anonymous savior. Later, they discovered me and started asking for little cards to give to others. Eventually, I couldn’t keep up with the orders. By then, I was talking to almost all the classmates, because M. was the right hand of the principal, and I was her right hand. I also discovered that this ability to write small allowed me to create cheat sheets for exams. I became a real professional; I made mini cheat sheets in exchange for sweets.

When M. discovered my antics, she suggested that instead of writing so small, which was quite laborious, I should write in a notebook, and that’s how I started studying with notes. Curiously, I had very good handwriting and was very organized with my outlines; I liked my notebook to look aesthetically clear and visual. That way, I could remember what I had written and outlined through visual memory, and it made it much easier to recall the answers to the exam questions.

Being so close to M. opened a direct path for me with the convent, the nuns, and the priests in several ways. One was organizing my first large event at fifteen: the First Youth Meeting in Christ, in preparation for the future visit of the Pope. We received many congratulations; it was a key moment of recognition for me. It was like being in a dark cave and suddenly stepping into the light, shining; I felt like a discovered treasure.

Sexuality: A Complicated Issue

Boys started to interest me when I was ten. I always liked several at the same time; at least one from each group I hung out with. Luckily, at that age, it wasn’t essential for me that they liked me back; it was more important to have an object of desire to bring into my fantasies rather than to materialize them.

There was one thing they all had in common: they looked like good boys. If they were attractive, even better, but the most important thing was that they were kind. Then, as I got deeper into adolescence, I would start looking at them differently, with a feline gaze: I wanted to tame beasts, to turn a bad boy into an altar boy through his love for me.

Coinciding with my menstruation, at fourteen, I met two almost opposite boys, who showed me a different dimension of my adolescence. Both were three years older than me. A. was a medical student, and P. went to night school for adults. I saw A. as so mature, so responsible, that I felt it was an honor that he liked me, that he noticed me, a very skinny, graceless teenage girl, according to the image the mirror reflected. Even though he made me feel my curves when his hands touched me in his father’s imported car, I still remember the tight pink corduroy pants he loved so much. My innocence and his prudence didn’t allow us to go further than exchanging kisses and caresses, but for me, it was very daring. When I came home at midnight and my uncle R. opened the door, I received the hardest slap of my life.

Then I met P., who had a profile almost the opposite of A., with his cigarette, cat-like gaze, few words, and passion. He treated me like I was a little girl, and I felt cared for and protected by someone much bigger than me. When he hugged me, he would surround me with his arms, rocking me, and I felt that nothing bad could happen to me, that he would defend me from anyone.

A Sad and Silent Teenager

Every afternoon we met. He came from very far away, taking several buses to arrive, and we took advantage of dark corners to kiss each other. The kisses were soft, something

unusual coming from a guy with vast sexual experience: he had experimented in both directions, with his best friend and with several women older than him. However, with me, he limited himself to kissing me and wiping away my tears, which were not few. Once again, I felt like I was with someone I could rest from my aggressiveness, my struggle, my anger. In every afternoon spent with him, there was always space and time to let myself fall and cry; I felt so in love... He was an enigmatic person, and he had a reputation for being a delinquent. His personal situation was very complicated, and that complexity was perhaps what attracted me the most to him, along with his masculinity and his protection, which allowed me to show myself fragile and vulnerable, perhaps for the first time with the opposite sex, without being the one in control or saying what should be done.

However, as time passed, it became a stormy relationship. I was emotionally unstable, and he wanted to “settle down” with me. Until that point, he hadn’t been too interested in his studies, but since he met me, he decided to join university and wanted to become a veterinarian. He had to move to a distant city, Río Cuarto. The distance complicated the relationship. I was very sociable and hung out with my group of friends, and problems began: he was very jealous, and I wasn’t careful with his feelings.

I became aware of the intensity of our relationship one night when we went dancing at a club. I had confessed to him that I had let another guy kiss me while he was in another city. That’s when he decided to take his revenge. He started dancing with an ex-girlfriend of his, very attractive and sexy, and kissed her right in front of me. I left, and he followed me, telling me to get in the car, that he was taking me home. When we got in the car, he began crashing into other cars, not caring about the damage he was causing. He left me in the middle of nowhere, alone and without money. Although he later came back and drove me home, I got out of the car without looking back, acting dignified and denying the fear I had experienced. That was the end of our relationship.

The Most Romantic Summer of My Youth

The following summer was the most romantic of my youth. My sister’s boyfriend, H., welcomed my sister and me to his uncle’s house. They both wanted to live on their own, so, without even asking, I found myself integrated into that family. Everyone else knew what was going on except me, as I found out at the door. He introduced me to his uncles, three cousins, and one cousin. The youngest cousin was eighteen years old: J. He was attractive, tall, and broad-shouldered, and his experience with women was evident.

Despite being a surprise, I ended up liking that family very much from the first moment. They were very affectionate, communicative, and cheerful. They took me to what would be my room from then on, J.’s room, the coolest and most private one. He moved to the guest

room, and had the perfect excuse to visit me often in my room, take his clothes, and steal a kiss or hug since we couldn’t show our relationship at his house. It was a secret, though so obvious!

Suddenly, I had a new wonderful family, and I felt like we had adopted each other. J. and I became inseparable. We had breakfast together, he accompanied me to the store where I started working, we went to the countryside, to the pool, and to fly in his brother’s airplane... He never stopped surprising me. It was as though he had read all the romance novels by Corín Tellado and wanted to put them into practice.

Despite his sexual experience, and maybe because we lived under the same roof, J. was very careful with me. We never kissed in public, only when we were in the car or in the dark corners of the club where we went to dance. I loved being hugged by him and dancing close together. I feel that this is a model I’ve repeated throughout my life in relationships: I look for a good-father-protector-man to give him everything except my sexuality. I seduce and constantly attract his attention and provoke his desire, only to tell him no. I love seeing and feeling his desire, but without sharing myself. I only want to be the object of desire for the other, but not give myself to them.

The Religious Part of My Life

When I returned from vacation, I came into contact with a religious social research group. The main house of the congregation (some might see it as a cult) was located in the most expensive area of downtown Córdoba. When I arrived at the large, newly placed carved wooden gate, I rang the bell, and the person who opened it was the woman I later identified as the coordinator. She was so kind and polite that I simply let myself be guided from the imposing lobby, up a beautiful carved wooden staircase, to the space where the whole group was already gathered. Of course, we were all women and very young.

So, without much more, I started collaborating with the group. From the very first moment, I felt part of that environment. They explained that the goal of the group was research on the social situation of street children, and we had to create a project with realistic but creative solutions. Motivated by my ambition, since the selected project would be presented to the Pope in Rome, I worked tirelessly. From day one, I was assigned a spiritual guide and given a confession booklet, where there was an endless list of sins. The first time I read it, I saw that there were sins I didn’t even know existed. Every week, I would meet with my spiritual guide and confess everything I had done, reviewing the list of sins beforehand. And each week, I would take communion at two Masses, one at the school and the other at the Order, which was the name of the group... It turned out to be the Opus Dei. Much of my

academic development, my study habits, my skills as a researcher, and my dedication to lifelong learning are thanks to the people who accompanied me during that time.

But at twenty, when I started dating J., my first serious boyfriend, I left the Opus. The weekly confessions became unbearable. I kept failing at the act of contrition! The idea was never to sin again. And I couldn’t deny myself the possibility of having a boyfriend and feeling guilty about it.

However, I still needed to belong to a religious group, and I began participating in the Gnostic Christian Universal Movement, or the no-sex cult. They recruited us through their lectures and courses on Greek mythology, Atlantis, Ancient Egypt, astrology, psychology, self-knowledge, the Mayans, the Celts, and Far Eastern traditions... Gnosis, as knowledge, was meant to gather all the wisdom from ancient schools. For this reason, it became a doctrine of synthesis, revealing all the mysteries that had been hidden from humanity. The sect believed that people should awaken their consciences and strive for harmonization, which could be achieved through eliminating the ego, self-examination, meditation, and the use of sexual energy, considered the greatest human energy.

They believed that the perfect marriage occurred when couples engaged in intercourse without reaching orgasm, so as not to spill semen. They promoted virginity and complete abstinence from masturbation. They said we should have monogamous relationships with one person for life, because in the sexual act, we absorbed the karma of the other person, including their past lives. This fit with the idea of entering marriage as a virgin, something straight out of the romantic novels of my childhood.

This idea seemed so attractive to my young mind... Finally, I seemed to have found a religion that justified how I felt about sexuality. So, I became part of a new religious movement, full of people who could also academically substantiate it. It took me twenty years to realize that my spiritual need wasn’t necessarily related to a religion or secular movement, but that I was actually a seeker. But I discovered that much later, when I met my teacher, Claudio Naranjo.

Compete, Above All, Compete

Something that has always been present in my life is my passion for competition. As a child, I had no order or discipline, so the message was clear: I had to be intelligent above all else. Intelligent and strategic to survive, to find my place in the family. And throughout my life, this has been constantly reaffirmed, in every action, every thought, every relationship, every contact.

My specialty was always emotions, matters of the heart. I was interested in romance, the love lives of others, and the art of rhetoric. I also liked listening to conflicts, giving my opinion or solution, and I was quite good at making someone see their responsibility in what was happening to them. I called it “doing justice,” although in reality, it was more about how much I enjoyed hearing myself argue, leaving the interlocutor speechless, and of course, having the last word.

Continuing with the competitive environment I grew up in, where it was necessary to stand out, you had to shine in some way. Money was important, but even more so were university degrees, awards, and social recognition. C., the oldest of all my cousins, has five university degrees: he’s a doctor (like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather...); a graduate in Political Science; a graduate in International Relations; an English teacher (and French, Italian, Portuguese) and a public auctioneer. He is an example.

As for me, I entered university at seventeen; my aunts had advanced me one year from kindergarten: they had this option because my Aunt S. was one of the teachers at the school. And although it was hard to get that permission, my oral skills left no doubts. Later, I lost that year with my first university choice: I was clearly not mature.

So, I started studying Pharmacy at the Catholic University, a private one, which at that time was one of the most prestigious in the country. There were more than one hundred students, and I only thought about getting everyone’s attention, so I began sneezing over and over again. Everyone turned to look at me, and then I stopped: goal accomplished. At least, I would be “the one who sneezed.”

But I dropped out after the first year; my interests didn’t align with chemistry. Luckily, before leaving that faculty, I met one of my best friends, M. I came from a religious environment where we didn’t even dare to mention words like “bisexuality” or “homosexuality.” However, I started accompanying M. to gay bars. She stayed at my house quite often and loved talking when we were together.

And One Night, When She Sought My Confessions

One night, when she was trying to get me to confess my intimacies, she confessed to me that she liked women and that she was going to leave her lifelong boyfriend because she was in love with me. I was stunned; I couldn’t believe it. At that moment, we were both finishing our respective degrees, and I was still dating J. I don’t remember if I needed to tell her that I didn’t feel the same way, but from that moment on, something shifted between us. I no longer felt that her need to get close to me was excessive; now that I understood what was happening, I was able to relax and feel closer to her because we shared her

secret, and that made me feel special. She fully liberated herself, and we began to share everything in depth. She told me that she had hopes for us because she knew my sexual life with J. was disastrous. She was convinced that I would find my true identity with women…

I Found My Vocation: Psychopedagogy

My particular process of career orientation began with a newspaper clipping brought to me by my cousin, announcing that the Psychopedagogy program was accepting applications. She suggested I go and see what it was about. Little did I know that I had found the beginning of a professional path that would take me down many different roads.

From eighteen to twenty-four, I experienced a relatively fulfilling stage in my life. I had found my place in the world: love and vocation. In university, I was again in a predominantly female environment, both in terms of faculty and students; however, the atmosphere was completely different: we were there because we had chosen to be. I loved the classes, and since I had basic knowledge of philosophy and other subjects, I could afford to question the professors and ask questions that sparked debates in the classroom. I started practicing my tendency to create controversial or even conflictual movements in the group. Standing out and becoming the professor’s favorite in the subjects I was interested in became a constant during this stage of my life, and I continue to act this way in some environments.

Once again, my pattern emerged in front of group and institutional life: First, I must identify all the roles; second, I think about how to establish a strategy to win over those I’m interested in and thus meet my needs. When it came to the professors, I was only interested in the best, and luckily, most of them were exceptional, with a few exceptions.

Soon, I became a teaching assistant for two of my favorite subjects, with two of the professors I liked the most: the one for Philosophy and Ethics, and the one for Vocational and Occupational Guidance. There, I discovered my fondness for being behind the knowledgeable figure. I nourished myself with their know-how and solved their management and scheduling needs. Perhaps that’s why I later chose this field as my specialty; after all, it was a balance between the agenda of the guided person and designing personalized proposals to help them.

It’s interesting to see now, in retrospect, how each path opened a new one. After summer, I found out that a new degree program had been launched: the Professor of Education for Children in Distress and Social Conflict (yes, quite an Argentine name). At the same time, I enrolled in this new career. Focusing on work with children connected me deeply with my own childhood. The stories of the children I began accompanying were similar to my own,

but they lacked the somewhat protective family I had. This made me realize how much I owed to all my uncles and aunts, cousins, and relatives: thanks to them, I wasn’t under the guardianship of child welfare institutions or living on the streets.

What drove me was the urgent need to save these children, to give them something of what was given to me. So, I participated in all possible internships from the first year, requesting special permissions, as first-year students weren’t allowed to do internships. But I claimed that I was in my second year of Psychopedagogy and managed to get into the institutions. This allowed me to work with minors in care centers and institutions for troubled youth for five years.

I convinced several professors to allow open-book evaluations because the only thing I had time for, juggling multiple careers, was reading; I didn’t have time to take notes. In my final year, I scored perfect marks in almost all subjects and, as my family expected, I graduated with an average of 8.5—though not as high as my cousins’ 9.9 averages, it was still close.

When I Started the Minor's Education Program, I Fell in Love with E2 Professors

When I started the Minor's Education program, I developed a platonic crush on two professors. The program coordinator, a widower with six children, was very religious and had it all: he was serious, intelligent, attractive, and morally impeccable. The other was a renowned psychoanalyst who worked in courts: sexy, also intelligent, warm, flexible, friendly, and smiling.

In my fantasies with the first one, I imagined becoming the mother of his children. The second one was liked by the whole class, and, of course, he let himself be adored, so he didn’t fit into my marriage fantasies: only someone who was exclusively for me was worthy of being fantasized about. But, curiously, from the first one, I only received praise. Instead, I discovered that the second one knew how to listen, and towards the end of the program, I started a therapeutic process with him that would help me end my relationship with J., my first real and formal boyfriend, after five years together.

The Last Time I Saw My Father

At that time, at twenty-four, my father came back into my life. He called me at my aunt S.’s house and said he wanted to see me. We agreed to meet at a bar. He had found out that I was already a professional and wanted to congratulate me for it. I barely remember the conversation, but I do remember that he told me I had almond-shaped eyes like my mother. That man was a complete stranger to me; his sweet and seductive voice repelled me. I don’t

remember how long we shared, maybe an hour. But I didn’t know where he came from or where he was going. The conversation revolved around my studies and my future, and he seemed interested, but everything felt strange; the last time I had heard from him, I was fifteen. Occasional, shallow appearances left me cold and indifferent. I wouldn’t reconnect with him until sixteen years later when I was at a completely different point in my life.

A New Beginning

As if everything I was already doing wasn’t enough, I enrolled in Law school, with the excuse of helping J. study. A mix of camaraderie and competitiveness arose between us, though I couldn’t say in what proportion; but I do remember that, after my good exam results, he became motivated and began progressing in his studies. We spent three years like this, but thanks to my work with my therapist, I realized that, on one hand, I was competing with him to prove I was brighter, more intelligent, and studious; and on the other hand, I had turned Law school into a stage to show off with controversial speeches that put some professors I didn’t admire in difficult situations—basically, I asked myself why they were there teaching if they weren’t the best. Later, we could say, the “karma” returned me to similar situations in my own profession as a university teacher, with students who behave as I once did.

But the main reason I studied Law was that I wanted to become a worthy successor to my mother, and as such, defend minors. Upon realizing this in therapy, I quit Law and focused on finishing Psychopedagogy and Minor’s Education. It was good that it turned out that way because it eased the tension in my relationship with J., placing us each in a different professional field.

I Considered Myself a Catch

At that point, I considered myself a catch: I was beautiful, intelligent, a professional, financially stable, and had an orphan’s pension that I would keep for life as long as I remained single—meaning I would lose it if I got married. So, during the first years of our relationship, I paid for all the luxuries, whether for him, for me, or for both of us. I lived in my uncle A.’s house, which was large and had all the comforts, and J. lived in the center, in a small apartment with his brother, with only the essentials: two beds, a table, a couple of chairs, and a bathroom you had to enter sideways. I made everything available to him, including a car and a motorcycle I bought. I was repeating some patterns from my parents: the support my mother gave to him in his studies and the financial support. The only difference was that J. was a much-improved version of my father, with kindness, loyalty,

fidelity, and generosity... and I, a little less wonderful than my mother, since what I had wasn’t the result of my efforts but what I inherited from her.

J. graduated a year before I finished my studies, and that physically separated us because he went back to his family’s town, and I stayed in Córdoba, where my family was. I aspired to travel the world, study abroad, learn languages, and pursue postgraduate degrees. He wanted to get married, own a house, have a dog, and spend Sundays washing the car and having a barbecue with the family in the village.

A New Beginning Again

J. proposed that I move in with him to Metán to work things out as a couple, but just the thought of staying there forever made me dizzy. However, I agreed to move to Salta, which was 150 kilometers away from Merán. I settled into an apartment owned by my uncle, and J. came to see me every weekend. In the building’s ground floor, there was a very chic store where lawyers from the courts and some of the upper society of Salta gathered. We talked about living together, and I was overcome with anxiety: at twenty-five, just imagining a life together made me want to run away.

Soon after, I told him I was sorry but we had to break up. He couldn’t believe it; he even proposed to me, but by then, it had become clear to me that I didn’t want to marry, have children, or be tied to anything or anyone; I bolted. Now, finally alone, free, and independent, I was starting a new chapter in my life. Soon, I began a private practice seeing gifted children and adolescents in need of vocational and occupational guidance. I felt comfortable and protected living and working in the same space, only going out to buy necessities and retreating back home. I still didn’t know anyone in Salta, had no friends, and no family connections. I assumed my father’s family lived somewhere in Chile, which I didn’t know; part of my mother’s family was 150 kilometers away in the town of Metán, and the other part was 900 kilometers away in Córdoba.

Helping children and adolescents became quite challenging. Now, I realize that the deficiencies from those stages and my lack of knowledge were obstacles when I tried to go beyond the techniques I knew. My only advantage, and the reason I managed to maintain some patients, was my good relationships with their parents and the teachers at the institutions. I realized that my connection was more with the adult world than the children’s, and I started looking for another alternative within psychopedagogy.

After several months, I found a job as a teacher at the Jean Piaget Institute, which was the only institution offering this career at the time. The warm, loving reception from the owners of the Institute, a mother and her two daughters, combined with my enthusiasm for

focusing on teaching, led me to another family-like environment, with which I shared more than just a professional relationship. I felt valued and supported.

But the ambition bug was always at play: As soon as I felt I had achieved something, an inner voice told me I needed something more. I could have stayed with the private practice and the teaching, but no, the possibility of making history, of being great, transcending, and being remembered for a great work—something that affected the whole world—was always lurking. A professional activity where the social world was so limited didn’t seem like an interesting life to me.

Finally, Making Friends

After some time, I met L., a charming architect with whom I am still friends. There was a very beautiful connection from the start; he was so funny, intelligent, and witty that I couldn’t stop laughing with him. He introduced me to his friends and took me to the bar owned by his brother A., a year older than him, also funny and intelligent, but with an aura of having lived a lot, as if he had already seen it all, even though he was only three years older than me.

Their father was a bit confused when he met me because, when he first saw me, I was with the younger son, and a few days later, I was with the older one. Luckily, the relationship between the two of them was always one of love and understanding, and at no point did A. or I receive any reproach from L. when we started a relationship. I say "relationship" rather than "dating" because it was an atypical situation for me: I knew his entire family, but he never got close to mine. Also, neither of us was interested in having a sexual life, neither between us nor with others. We tried a couple of times, but it was a disaster, and neither of us insisted again. We were a curious couple, only seen together at his bar, where I went every day to keep him company. It was more of a father-child relationship than a romantic one. We were together for two years.

First Level of Ambition: Leading

At twenty-six, I applied for the position of director at the San Ignacio de Loyola Private School, a school with disciplinary issues, something for which I felt prepared given my experience with institutionalized minors. Today, I find it incredible that at no point did I feel insecure when presenting myself as a candidate, as I was competing for the position with professionals who had experience as directors. The reality of the students was quite complex, and they resembled institutionalized minors more than school students, and that

was the main argument for my candidacy: I believe my experience in youth centers convinced them.

My initial proposal was to assess the situation by interviewing each teacher, which led to my proposal to change all the staff. Most of them wanted to leave the school because they had been enduring a difficult situation for years and wanted to move to another center, so I negotiated their severance pay, and the school owners agreed. We all won; from my side, I would have a new team formed by me, and I wouldn’t have to deal with the legacy of the previous administration. Thus began a long process of staff selection, where I created a written questionnaire, an interview model, and presented the final selection reports.

Looking back, I see how I lacked fear in a situation where I had no prior experience, and where others thought I knew what I was doing. The team I chose was very good, but it was more a result of intuition than reason. The only downside was that everyone was older than me, and that meant I had to work on establishing my authority. The turning point came in the first week of classes when I expelled five students who had robbed the school’s kiosk. That’s when I established my authority, both with the teachers and the students: by expelling the most problematic ones.

The average age of the teachers was forty. So, there was less of an age gap between the difficult students and me than between the teachers and me. Given my experience in youth centers, teachers sent undisciplined students to my office, which led to two consequences: I didn’t have time to manage the pedagogical project, and the teachers, out of convenience or incapacity, completely delegated authority over the students to me. Due to my inexperience, I took on this responsibility exclusively, as it was the only thing I knew how to do. Soon, we gained a reputation for being able to handle complicated cases and expelled students from other schools.

Another quality I had was the ability to manage difficult parents, including the parents of the students I expelled in the first week, whom I managed to place in other schools. This gave me a reputation for being just, but in reality, I did it because I wanted to please everyone and, above all, to present myself as the savior. The more I focused on the students and their families, the worse things got: I wasn’t acting as the director, and the truth was I wasn’t the right person for the job. It wouldn’t be the first time I convinced myself and others that I was capable, only to end up being exposed.

Second Level of Ambition: Looking for a Job, Nothing Is Impossible

I decided it was time to write a letter to the governor of the province of Salta, explaining the deficiencies in his youth policy. As a result of the situation I experienced at the school, I had

contacted professionals and institutions and was able to come up with some improvements to this policy. What still remains a mystery to me is what part of the content in that letter managed to get the secretary of the governor to call me for an interview.

I remember that she asked me challenging questions about my letter, and I became competitive. But luckily, she saw beyond my arrogance and my display of knowledge, and wisely made me a warning: "I think you can bring a fresh perspective to the Family and Youth Directorate, but if you talk to the Secretary of the Governor the way you’ve talked to me, forget about entering this Administration."

Indeed, the secretary acted as the prime minister: He was a strategist from Buenos Aires, and everyone feared him because nothing the governor did was without his consent; everything passed through his hands. So, I was about to meet the highest authority. Luckily, I had already received the warning, and I behaved very prudently and measuredly. Then he told me that I would be the advisor to the Director of Family and Youth in the province. That meant I would advise the director, a gynecologist, on all youth programs and institutions. I couldn’t believe it—going from a frustrated school director to the upper echelons of government.

I came into contact with a very large technical team, and there were all kinds of people. Some were highly prepared, but others were burned out because they didn’t want to be led by a gynecologist who had no clue, and even less by a 27-year-old newcomer who dressed as if she was going to a party every day, never repeating outfits, and whose mini skirts and low-cut tops were quite provocative for the older women, who were mothers and the majority of the Youth Department team.

Later, I would understand the importance of my appearance and attitude in the deep rejection I caused, but at first, I didn’t see anyone or anything—I was doing my own thing. I wasn’t aware of my intense seduction towards anything that moved, especially authority; and since they were men, I succeeded. I was conscious of my desire to get attention, but I didn’t see it as seduction because that would have placed me in a position of needing others' gaze, something I would never have acknowledged.

Third Level of Ambition: Transforming the Direction

I began working with strategic planning, in which I was being trained. Of course, I was doing it by ear; the ones who really knew were S. and C., two technicians trained in Buenos Aires with great knowledge and experience in this tool. I think it was an interesting encounter for both sides: through them, I would be able to make changes effectively, and

they, a liaison who had direct access to and the trust of the director. Thus, we began a period of transformations in the Secretary's office.

It wasn’t easy; there was resistance from all kinds of people, especially from the most experienced technicians in the area. I didn’t see them or listen to them; I was working at full speed. All I wanted was to transform the direction from top to bottom, applying the model of training I was receiving from the UN and the IMF. I coordinated with those who controlled the methodology, assigning tasks that others had to do. I had found my ideal place: coordinating others, going from meeting to meeting, and serving as a bridge between politics and technicality. I learned a lot, which, combined with my ambition, soon led me to ascend to new spheres.

Fourth Level of Ambition: Grupo Ferro

Soon, my name reached the governor's ears through a speech I gave about youth, requested by the Secretary of Social Development. My text made a huge impact, and they asked who had written it. Thus, I was invited to take charge of the methodological aspect of what would later be called Grupo Ferro, formed by the new generation of politicians the governor was recruiting for his re-election campaign. This is how I began to meet many lawyers, economists, engineers, doctors, architects, children of influential politicians, and technicians specialized in various areas of the government. I was once again one of the youngest in the group, but since 80% of the group was made up of men, I had the advantage of their attention.

At first, the focus was undoubtedly on my physical appearance, but it didn’t take long for me to earn respect based on my professionalism. My advantage was that I had the tools of strategic planning and could direct their knowledge and skills toward a common project: reviewing the government’s policy and identifying necessary improvements by region and sector.

The governor gave us a headquarters, a rehabilitated space in the railroad area; that’s where Grupo Ferro got its name. We met there every night with different groups, and I coordinated everything. Young politicians who were emerging, and who are now the ministers, judges, mayors, senators, and deputies, were there. It was an experience that made me very popular among the ministers, supreme court judges, mayors, senators, and deputies... What stood out most was that I had no godfather. However, it allowed me to speak to judges, deputies, and ministers on equal terms. In fact, I didn’t even feel inhibited in front of the governor, and now I understand it was because I didn’t recognize anyone as authority. They all seemed unworthy or immoral in some way to me; I knew their weak spots and belittled them in my eyes.

I acted as someone who had a powerful godfather, as if I were untouchable; I expressed my opinions freely without fear and without feeling small in front of anyone. Someone once told me that I acted like God's advisor. I behaved as if I only answered him... but not so he could tell me what to do, but so I could give God the orders.

Something similar happened in my personal life: Despite receiving almost daily male advances, I ignored all of them. I remained in an untouchable place, immaculate. I felt equal to the men and to some women who were professional and masculinized like me. This led me back to a solitude of informal relationships, as in the end, my relationship with men and women I deemed worthy was always competitive; I couldn’t relax with anyone or show weakness or vulnerability. I was under thirty and acted like a veteran.

During that period, I met several single, committed, and married men. My main interest was to feel desired: I took the situation to the limit where they would inevitably propose sex, and then that was the sign for me to leave. I now recognize this as an attempt to preserve a certain "virginity," linked to a disconnection from my libido, as well as my inability to conceive sex without love. In fact, only if I feel loved is there any possibility of sexual access.

I convinced myself during that time that I wasn’t meant to have a partner, and certainly not children. It helped to think that the traditional Argentine prototype wasn’t for me, especially the Salteña version, which was basically macho, where the woman’s place was always behind the man. The woman could be a professional, work, and hold positions of responsibility, but the man had liberties that she couldn’t have. So, my life was going to be centered on my studies and profession.

Expanding the Oasis

With all the different jobs I had had up to that point and my uncanny ability to start a conversation with anyone, anywhere, and at any time, my phone book was full of diversity. I lived on the seventh floor with a beautiful view of the foothills of the Andes, which I turned into the ideal place to organize epic dinners, mixing all kinds of people: fortune tellers, witches, transvestites, yuppies, therapists, journalists, etc. It became the perfect environment for the possibility of buying a bar, along with my friends V. and T. There, we could gather friends of all kinds, centralize the nightlife, and keep ourselves busy on weekends.

The bar was beautiful. It was called El Caldero. We became the first bar to bring live bands, from Thursday to Saturday, playing jazz, blues, and rock. Considering that Salta is a province where folk music is predominant, it was truly a novel proposal. Since I was still

working for the government, we had some illustrious visitors like the Minister of Finance and the head of the government, who came with his entire team, and of course, we closed the bar for them.

At that time, I also owned a taxi, just as an investment, which I shared with A., my partner with no romantic rights, who, as I mentioned earlier, also owned a bar and started organizing concerts as well. The appearance of competition weakened the business, and for a while, we became the bar where musicians came after their concerts in other bars. They said it was their favorite bar. Then the "jam sessions" started: musicians from different bands would arrive with their instruments, and new melodies were improvised. These were unique moments, like having a personal soundtrack; I think it was the best time at El Caldero, as it became filled with a bohemian, artistic atmosphere—the home of the musicians.

Little by little, I noticed that the political situation was getting tense, and the crisis was approaching. The beginning of the end was already visible, though not everyone was aware of it. I realized that I needed to explore other options, and Spain entered my plans. It was also a key moment in my professional life. I had reached the top, and there was nothing above me that interested me because climbing higher would have meant a level of commitment to the ruling party that I wasn't willing to make, as corruption was everywhere. Then came a direct request for me to join the party. I now see it as a way to test my loyalty to the cause. That was when I realized I didn’t want any permanent ties or commitments; also, I had information I didn’t want to get involved in. So I said I was going to take a sabbatical year in Spain to further my studies and bring back new tools. It was believable; at that time, I didn’t even know that I wouldn't return.

I had my family, a house, a name, a place in society and politics, and surely today I would be in some high-responsibility position. But something was missing, and I didn’t know what it was. Until I met Claudio Naranjo.

My Beginnings in Madrid

I arrived in Madrid in September 2000. I had enrolled at the Complutense University in the Ph.D. program in the Department of Research Methods for Diagnostics in Education. At thirty, it was like being eighteen again. I found an apartment with two girls, just 200 meters from the university. Financially, I was secure, with all my savings plus my mother’s pension; I didn’t need to work. I could dedicate myself entirely to studying, becoming the eternal student once more.

At the end of 2001, the "corralito" happened in Argentina. All my money was stuck there. Overnight, I had not a cent available, and that made me start from scratch again. I tried working at a Mexican restaurant, but I only lasted one night.

Since one postgraduate program wasn’t enough, I had also enrolled in a master’s program at the Francisco de Vitoria University and a specialization at the UCM. It was like in my university days, when I studied three degrees simultaneously. I now see my need for intensity: one degree wasn’t enough. Fortunately, through the master’s, I was offered the opportunity to apply for one of the available internships. This would give me a resident permit and some income to continue my postgraduate studies.

I got an interview with one of Union Fenosa’s companies, Soluziona. I started as an intern and within six months, I was promoted to Education and Training Manager. This brought several disadvantages with other colleagues who took years to move from intern to junior consultant, senior consultant, project manager, and then manager. It was as if, deep down, I felt a profound lack, which fueled my false abundance, and I had to fill it with achievements, domination, self-importance, and grandeur... I have a lot of confusion about where the boundary lies between the truth and the lies I tell myself, what I really know and am capable of, versus what I am not capable of doing. There are moments when I believe the stories I tell, and other times when I realize I’ve deceived others about my abilities.

Meeting My Husband

Also in 2001, I met my future husband. The first time I saw him was at his house. I rang the doorbell, and he opened the door. When I looked into his eyes, I heard a heavenly choir of angels singing, and I thought I saw a glow of light coming from his back. The impact was so strong that for hours, I couldn’t focus on anything else.

He was so handsome, with the sweetest gaze I had ever seen in my life, and his kindness reflected in his face. Over time, as I got to know him better, his virtues grew: generous, kind, prudent, hardworking, organized, a good son, a good brother, a good friend... Years later, he also became the best father. In short, a perfect man. From my idealization, he represented a combination, enriched, of all the qualities I admired in the people I had met throughout my life. I was also aware of the long journey I would have to go on to live up to this ideal.

Eighteen years have passed now, and we have shared and overcome countless crises, some very deep, but today I can say I would choose him again. Thanks to the teachings I received later, I’ve understood that this choice of partner is a spiritual journey.

My Yuppie Years

Working at the multinational company opened up a dimension I already knew, but now in a European version. It was a small political world, sustained by patriarchy, based on hierarchies, machismo, power games, factions, and backstage rumors. Again, I was in my element, I knew exactly how things worked. To fit in with the environment, I bought suits, bags, shoes, and glasses that matched wonderfully with my red convertible, "wind-in-hair" model.

I perfectly fit into my new job and fully entered the world of business consulting. I started traveling across Spain to sell and develop quality, environmental, and occupational risk prevention projects. In this emerging and highly competitive environment, I had to learn a lot in a short time; no one asked me how much I knew about quality; they just sent me to evaluate organizations. I specialized in quality. The official training from the CEG Excellence Club enabled me to become a licenser of the EFQM model, which allowed me to do what I loved most: listen to problems and propose creative solutions, tell organizations what they were doing wrong and how to fix it. They obeyed me and thanked me. Oh, it was perfect! My ego danced with joy...

My name began circulating in the university sphere, then in study groups, and later in public administrations. I started to become known technically and politically, connecting professionals and organizations. One of my main skills was being a bridge.

But I only lasted two years at Soluziona. Why? The competitive environment, where I couldn’t win everyone’s admiration, the difficulty in connecting with the feminine, and therefore building relationships with my female colleagues, and the total lack of admiration for my bosses. Also, the lack of motivation, because the quality systems didn’t actually create any real transformation in the people who upheld them, but only improved the formality and language they used to present themselves.

My departure from the company happened after a conversation with one of my immediate superiors, who made me realize that I had risen too quickly and had again hit a ceiling. In six months, I had gone from intern to manager, but I wanted more, and it was made clear to me that it wasn’t possible. My interlocutor said to me, "Do you see any women in the positions you’re interested in? Well, it’s not by chance. The only thing left for you is to continue specializing in handling more and more products, but I wouldn’t aspire to more if I were you." It was a good limit.

Then I started again from scratch as a freelancer. Leveraging the relationships I had built in various groups I belonged to, I quickly became a trainer, consultant, evaluator, and collaborator in organizing events in various educational confederations, working with over 200 educational centers, from preschool to university, throughout Spain. My income was

higher than my husband's, which gave me the freedom to move around and be away as much as I wanted. Once again, in my egoic element.

I traveled a lot giving training and participating in the coordination of early childhood education conferences. I was able to develop my political, strategic, and communication skills further, which made me famous among my colleagues. I was flourishing—schools wanted more training with me, and I had to invent new courses as soon as the previous one finished. They said I injected creativity straight into their veins, and I was completely happy. I had it all: a partner who admired me, and money that was only the result of my effort, which allowed me to finance all my whims and cover his as well. However, as always, something was missing, and some things didn’t work perfectly or as wonderfully as I had hoped.

The First Clicks

Suddenly, at thirty-six, the biological clock began to emit a loud tick-tock. It was a critical moment because we were both professionally at the peak of our careers, but I managed to convince him, and immediately I became pregnant.

This found us completely unprepared, and I was overwhelmed by a wave of anxiety, lack, and maternal ignorance, which I can now see from a distance, though at the time, I had no idea. Being pregnant was the best physical state for me. For the first time in my life, I was able to relax with my body: I no longer had to wear high heels or tight clothing. My breasts were full, and I constantly felt accompanied—it was wonderful. I didn’t experience any typical pregnancy discomfort; I felt better than ever.

I tried to make up for my lack of personal experience with books and workshops about motherhood. I took a course with a pediatrician and an obstetric gynecologist, who later became famous in natural birth circles. In fact, the pediatrician’s first patient was my firstborn. From there, she became a key figure in supporting me in my parenting journey, as my son had various symptoms. Through her, I entered the world of homeopathy and met professionals involved in therapies such as osteopathy, rhythmic anthroposophic massage, eurhythmy, Pikler-Lóczy pedagogy, and day mothers and doulas. I started to connect with more psychopedagogical aspects than business ones.

Twenty-two months later, my second daughter arrived. I didn’t breastfeed either of them, something I deeply regret. I was completely unhinged: I had done all sorts of workshops and courses on natural parenting that I couldn’t sustain in my real daily life. I couldn’t embody the knowledge I had acquired.

And then one day—bam! My partner had a motorcycle accident, his left collarbone shattered, the same shoulder where I used to rest my head to fall asleep.

He couldn’t care for himself, like showering or dressing without help, nor do household tasks or carry the children. That moment made me realize how absent I had been from my family, as my work required many trips and intense hours, and I would return when the children were already asleep. I had a husband and two children whom I wasn’t taking care of and didn’t know what their needs were. I understood that accident as a message from the universe, no doubt for him, but also for me. It was like seeing everything he was carrying, while I was out there, playing a more masculine than feminine role.

In synchronicity, I received a paper from one of my university students on contemporary thinkers linked to education. The authors were familiar to me, as almost the same ones were repeated every year, except for one: Dr. Claudio Naranjo, a man whose existence I was unaware of. I began looking up information about him and started to be amazed by his videos on the Internet. A few years earlier, he had published the book Changing Education to Change the World. And suddenly, I saw that his foundation was offering a four-and-a-half-day course called Introduction to the Psychology of Enneatypes, and off I went. My colleagues asked me what it was about, and I said, "I have no idea, but I’m going."

The SAT Program

It was astonishing what I encountered when I arrived at the course, coming from my yuppie world. I landed wearing my eight-centimeter heels, perfectly matched with my purse, tight suits, and matching glasses. And suddenly, I entered a room where everyone was barefoot. Not only that, they were lying on the floor! Among rugs and cushions, I almost had a shock.

My first thought was, "Where have I gotten myself into?" I urgently searched for a chair. There were very few available for the number of people present, but with the short skirt I was wearing, I couldn’t afford to sit on the floor, my goodness! The other issue was how everyone else was dressed. They looked like they had stepped out of a 1960s picture. Everyone in sweatpants, long hair, braids, dreadlocks, beards, gray hair, unshaven... My God, these people had never visited a decent hair salon in their life, and I, of course, came from Llongueras.

From that moment on, I didn’t see it coming. My mind wasn’t processing any logical thoughts. I was just a bundle of emotions that came and went, and I didn’t even know what was happening. I remember some of my peers talking to the therapists because they were concerned about how I was reacting to the different exercises that were being proposed. Almost all the participants came from Gestalt therapy, were therapists, or had done family

constellations or other personal development processes. I seemed to be the only one who had no idea where I was.

As the days went by, I became more certain that I had found something truly significant. For the first time in my life, information wasn’t entering through my mind or understanding. I took notes, but it didn’t matter because there was no content to catch, something fixed. It was my body that understood, and that understanding was something I couldn’t explain in words, but expressed through emotions. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried my wounds from such deep pain.

The workshop therapists were Assumpta Mateu and the dear, unforgettable Ramón Resino. On the last day, I approached him and said, "Mr. Ramón, I think it would be interesting for Claudio Naranjo to meet me."

I still remember his face. He was stunned and then laughed kindly: "Of course! I’ll put you in contact with Asunta Hormaechea, who is in Madrid, so she can connect you with him." Then I asked where I could continue my training and which therapist he would recommend to begin a personal process. He suggested I take the next level of training: the SATI. He also gave me the names of Paco Peñarrubia and the Madrid School of Gestalt Therapy, and Pedro de Casso. And that’s where I went.

Claudio Naranjo

Shortly after completing the Introduction to Enneatype Psychology course, I went to Barcelona to meet the man who would become my teacher, Claudio Naranjo. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that what I was really longing for through all this searching was to have a teacher, a reference. Until then, I hadn’t felt the opportunity or the need to admire anyone. On the contrary: any authority I encountered was quickly placed below me. Through seduction, intelligence, competence, or morality, I managed to feel superior.

We met at the headquarters of the Claudio Naranjo Foundation. I remember he looked at me and smiled briefly. Then, he walked with his head down and glanced at me sideways, first at my hands, then at my neck. I never asked him why, but I imagine he was trying to identify me characteristically and didn’t know where I was inclined. As soon as we exchanged the first words and I told him I wanted to carry out a research project with him in the field of education as the foundation for my doctoral thesis, my ambition must have been evident.

Fortunately, we were with other people because I was almost speechless, except to answer his direct questions. Given my verbosity, I couldn’t understand what was happening to me: I was in shock. His attitude was observant, silent, and he spoke without the usual niceties or

the typical phrases people use when they first meet. This left me dry; I wasn’t used to it. I had prepared a speech of everything I was going to say to show him how much I had read of his books and how intelligent I was with my observations and questions about his thoughts. But there was no room for that. Fortunately, the others filled the silence, and this made me think it would be a very brief meeting, but still, the words wouldn’t come, even though I was probably losing what could be the only chance to speak with him.

However, Claudio invited me to lunch with them. The conversation was light and simple, and no one spoke about fundamental or transcendent things. I continued in silence, answering questions while looking at my plate. I felt completely unknown. Then, when dessert came, Claudio said to me: "You can go check the foundation’s storage to see what you find." And that was the end of our meeting. At least it seemed like if I found something interesting, I might have the chance to see him again.

I went to the storage at the headquarters, and in an endless world of boxes full of papers, I made myself comfortable and began reviewing them one by one. I found various test batteries and many varied responses to different forms, which I began sorting and organizing into separate boxes. By the end of the day, I had gathered all the batteries, the responses, the factor analysis, and copies of nine groups of pages containing about three hundred phrases for each of the nine Enneatypes. I had no idea how much Claudio would appreciate this, as it was material dating back to the 1980s and typed on a typewriter. I see this as a tiny symbolic sample of his legacy, which still remains to be sorted, classified, and organized, much of it still in boxes, video tapes, or CDs.

I wish I hadn’t strayed from this path of researching with him. In my fantasy, I would have helped him in this area where, apparently, he had no support, and I also would have been able to finish my thesis, still unfinished today. But the neon lights were too attractive, and I stumbled upon the same stone again.

Fortunately, more opportunities would arise to collaborate with Claudio. His desire was to create a personality test with 27 scales, one for each subtype of Enneagram psychology, instead of just describing five personality dimensions, like Raymond Cattell. So we began working with 240 items, though in the last months, Claudio was investigating the possibility of working with 300. He was convinced that if we selected the adjectives and phrases he had found and cross-referenced them with the NEO Pi results grouped by subtypes, we would be able to create a test that could confirm specific traits by subtype—an instrument that still doesn’t exist and that I hope will be achieved in the future, by researching his legacy.

We formed a team with Javier Hernández de la Luz, Susan Sylvester, Mónica Bustos, Antonio Castillo, my husband, and myself, with the goal of utilizing the voluntary participation of SAT students to take both tests—the NEO and the 240 adjectives test—and

we met in Zamora for the occasion. My husband computerized the instrument, but we never managed to use it. I had a hyper-neurotic-creative outburst and, without realizing it, took another direction...

I quote Claudio literally from one of our emails in August 2011: "I will be very interested in hearing your proposals regarding bringing educators closer to the dream of a new education to renew our world in crisis." And with just that sentence, the tsunami was unleashed. I now see my voracity: I became an idea machine. For every idea he presented, I came up with another. Every video of his I watched or every text I found inspired new proposals. It was so easy for me to get excited with every email, meeting, call, or Skype that I wanted more and offered more. I think I became a stalker: I wrote to him every week, and he responded so kindly and immediately that my ideas overwhelmed me.

Claudio had become a source of inspiration and creativity for me, and I became a help for his memory of pending matters.

By chance, one day we ran into each other at the airport: he was about to take his flight to Barcelona, and I was heading to Madrid. There, we arranged our next meeting, just a few days later. By then, I already had a sort of "Claudian fever": every exchange opened a new window. And Claudio never stopped assigning me task after task, which I often left unfinished or only partially accomplished. I couldn’t handle my life, and thanks to SAT, Gestalt, and therapy, I could start to see everything more clearly: how much I wanted to encompass and how little I could actually hold. I still feel a deep pain for all the promises I made to him that I couldn’t fulfill during Claudio’s life, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to keep them.

A Life Change

My arrival at the SAT school and into Claudio Naranjo’s universe brought many changes. First, on a personal level. But also, many others on a family and professional level. For example, we had always sent our children to expensive schools, like the Swiss School, where we had an intense social life as a family. We organized charity dinners and second-hand fairs to raise funds for food banks, participated in embassy gala dinners, etc.

But by the end of 2013, we had hit our financial bottom and could no longer sustain the life we were living: renting an attic in Las Tablas, two cars, two private school fees plus lunch, extracurricular activities, parking in the center, various insurance, etc. I was no longer working as a freelancer; I had decided to stop working for all the clients I had to focus solely on the Claudio Naranjo Foundation, which was the only thing that made sense to me at the time. This, combined with the economic crisis that also affected my husband's

business, showed us that we were living beyond our means. For the first time, I lacked the financial security I had always enjoyed.

The most important criterion for changing cities was that the children continued with an education that supported us as a family from a holistic pedagogy, as Claudio proposed in his book Changing Education to Change the World. Thus, we arrived at Sa Llavor in Mallorca: I had known about the project since 2011 when I had been looking for a school for my niece, as my sister had moved to live on the island.

This is how we started a low-cost life in one of Spain's most expensive islands. When we told people we were going to live in Mallorca to reduce costs, they laughed, but in the end, we managed to at least make them question it. The new school was in an old convent in Mancor de la Vall, a village with fewer than a thousand inhabitants, at the end of the road. We moved from two rooms to a four-bedroom house with three bathrooms, a front and back garden, beautiful mountain views, snow in winter... and for a third less than what we were paying in Madrid.

At the school, they don't allow refined sugars, so our diet has changed quite a bit. We walked to school, or went by bicycle or scooter. The morning traffic jams, parking costs, extra gas, and insurance were gone. And if we stayed in the area, we could go out for dinner for less than half of what it cost in Madrid. As residents, we got very cheap flights... But it all came at a price: the children couldn’t adapt to the new village, we missed being able to go out in Madrid, we missed family... It wasn’t easy at first.

We were both in therapy at the time. And the last night in Mallorca, before I went to Barcelona and he to Italy, leaving the children with the grandparents, at the farewell, my husband said to me: "I’m going to have a child with you." And a few months later, the youngest of the family arrived, me at forty-five and him at forty-six. In the same year, I changed language, type of city, neighborhood, house, school, work, colleagues, routines, and pace of life, and now, a big family!

Choosing this new life wasn’t easy, but now I can embody more of a woman’s role. We are a family that works as such. I’ve come to understand that life doesn’t happen in the grand offices of power, but in the everyday with the people you truly love, and for that reason, I have achieved a certain peace of mind.

Trying to Find Myself with a Therapist

Over the following years, and thanks to my relationship with Claudio, his disciples, and the communities of integrative education from the Claudio Naranjo Foundation, my interest in one-on-one therapy has gradually increased. Before, I felt it was a waste of time; I found it

more practical and encompassing to address a group rather than just one person. I thought my time was too valuable to invest in just one individual. In a group, it felt like there was a statistical chance of appealing to several people. I probably wouldn’t please everyone, but in an individual interaction, everything was focused on the possibility of pleasing one person. Over these years, I’ve worked on my fear of intimacy, allowing myself to connect with everything that arises in the encounter with another. However, I still have fears about not being a good therapist, as the desire to dedicate myself to therapeutic work has awakened within me. And I still fear that I might be forced to take a vacation as a last-ditch effort.

Another fear that prevented me from exploring the possibility of becoming a therapist was the idea of abandonment, absence, rejection, and escape. Now I see them as ghosts that permanently haunt my life, both from my side and from others. It’s different if a few people abandon a large group than if suddenly one person leaves in an individual relationship.

My difficulties in becoming an individual therapist are dissipating as I learn to truly see the other, to listen to them with presence, to simply remain silent without trying to impose myself while they speak, feeling a commitment to their process, respecting their pace, and prioritizing their agenda over mine. At times, I feel a rush of energy like that of a tarot reader, astrologer, or clairvoyant, and I risk falling into the temptation of telling the other person who they are and what they should do. Becoming aware of this helps calm the anxiety I usually feel towards slowness, ignorance, misunderstanding, fragility, and capriciousness.

I also see the risk of falling into an unlimited listening, losing control of time, not knowing how to say, “Until next time,” by getting lost in the other person, or using the strategy of making them feel hyper-listened to, more listened to than ever, to make them feel treated as something special by me and to show that I am the best “listener” they have ever had. In my most frantic state, I see my fear of the other’s slowness in the therapeutic process, of their difficulty in accepting my "holy word" right away, and their inability to see the light through me.

However, I recall the experiences of therapeutic listening I had throughout my training at the Madrid School of Gestalt Therapy, and the feedback from my "listened" peers, which was quite flattering, as if I had the potential to be a therapist. And many times, that’s true: in certain situations, when someone shares something that’s happening to them, I begin to speak as if my words flow naturally, as though I were delivering a message that comes from another place; not from my reasoning, nor from my seduction, nor from my strategy (I usually don’t remember what I just told them). Today, I’m interested in exploring group therapeutic work with adolescents and the parents of adolescents. I like to listen and see what arises. I try to stay mindful of my body language and that of others. I use a lot of

reflection, repeating what others have said as a way to confirm if I’ve really understood, as I tend to interpret and make up content. I also like to synthesize what has been said so far. I like to ask about obvious phrases, and I don’t like to leave anything assumed: even if it seems like a silly question, I enjoy asking it, and this makes me think I can show that I don’t know or don’t understand. I have plenty of confrontation, but I’m still working on making it increasingly more loving. Sometimes, when I listen to someone, I feel an impulse to set boundaries, and I usually do. When in doubt, I remain silent, and I’m not uncomfortable with the other’s silence—it’s like practicing giving space. The other person owns their time, and it’s up to them to decide how to use it. I’m not in a hurry to move forward if they don’t want to, although it ends up being frustrating for me…

Changing My Real Father for an Ideal Father

A few months ago, after having completed SAT 1, my father reappeared in my life. Thirty-one years had passed since the last time we shared more than just a coffee chat. It seems that he was going through his past and remembered that he had a daughter. He traveled to Salta and convinced my lawyer to give him my phone number from Spain, and that’s how my husband handed me the call, simply saying: “It’s your father.”

I was frozen. I took the call as if I had spoken to him yesterday, then I became demanding and aggressive, questioning why he had taken so long to show signs of life. I received no response, just a "I’m sorry." We spoke several more times, and when I started asking him uncomfortable questions about his past or ours, he would say it was better to talk about it in person. We agreed to meet at the end of January 2012; we stayed in contact, but it was already clear that the delicate topics would be discussed when we met.

We were organizing two conferences for January 16 and 17, 2012, at the Complutense University—one with José Antonio Marina and Claudio at the Faculty of Philosophy, and the second one only with Claudio at the Faculty of Education, where I was still a professor. On the night of January 16, after the first lecture ended, Asunta Hormaechea asked me to take the flowers that had been decorating the stage to my car so we could reuse them for the next conference. When I opened the door, I was struck by the smell of a cemetery. I thought, "Of course, they’re just flowers." E2 nights later, I received a phone call from Buenos Aires, from my father’s wife, telling me that on Monday, January 16, he had passed away.

Three days had passed, he was already in a grave, and I couldn’t go to the wake or the funeral. I had no one to talk to, and everyone in my family would be happy with the news. I had a flight to Argentina twelve days later to meet with him. All my questions remained unanswered, waiting for the encounter that could never happen.

Then, I tried to see the glass half full. I thought: my biological father has died, but life has given me a teacher whom I now see as an ideal father. That brought me a calm that led me to a twelve-day daily fast.

Now, years later, after losing my ideal father, my teacher, I feel a deep sadness, but also faith in the future and immense gratitude. The bond with him helped me repair the bond with my father. I have stopped being an orphan.