I’ve been thinking a lot about everything I’ve been through since I got married in 2021. Since then, any attempt to control or predict my own life would have failed 100 %. I never thought that what has happened to me would happen, that I’d be living where I live, or that I’d be spending my days the way I do.
I come from a well-to-do family, I attended a private school, and my academic performance was excellent. I've lived my whole life in Torrelodones, north of Madrid, in a house with a wonderful pool.
Everyone in my family has enjoyed good health, and we’ve been able to enjoy wonderful summers. I’ve visited Marbella, been a member of the Club de Campo in Madrid, spent Christmas at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid, and traveled several times to Venice, London, and Paris. I’ve visited the castles along the Loire River. I’ve lived in Germany and Chicago. I’ve been able to go on cruises and learn whatever I’ve wanted to: windsurfing, skiing, horseback riding, flamenco, and piano.
Now, I find myself in such different circumstances that it seems as though my adult life doesn't match what I've experienced since I was a child, and that's why I might feel frustrated or dissatisfied.
From the outside, anyone might say that I’ve done something wrong, since it seems I’ve fared rather poorly financially. However, even though I haven’t made any material progress, I haven’t missed out on anything in terms of my life. What’s more, more things—and even bigger things—are happening inside me than outside.
I live in Vallecas with my husband and my three children. We’re barely making ends meet, enduring very hot summers without a pool, and crammed into an apartment where I do my best to help my children experience the same beauty I experienced as a child.
I live in Vallecas, without a clear career path, taking care of one of my children who has cystic fibrosis, an incurable disease for which there are now very effective treatments that allow him to live a good life. However, to do this, at 31 years old, I’ve had to give up my career and devote myself fully to him, day in and day out, without rest. This way, I can ensure that he maintains good lung health and breathes well, even if it means giving up, to some extent, everything I’d like to enjoy with my friends and in my social life.
Everything I've described seems to suggest that things aren't going well for me—neither financially, nor professionally, nor in any of the ways a person might expect from their decisions; some might even think it would have been better not to get married or have children. Because, for now, the things that have come my way because of them seem like great misfortunes.
However, deep within me, I walk paths of beauty—the kind that faith bestows when one lives from the depths of a vocation.
Thus, based on my calling and the conviction that I do not shape my own life, but that God Himself shapes it for me, everything appears to me as a privilege. On the one hand, my little one’s illness appears to me as a gift from Him: a face-to-face encounter with Christ, with Christ crucified, who makes a personal promise to me. On the other hand, our modest means do not limit us, but rather help us enjoy what is essential. An afternoon in the countryside seems like the perfect plan to us, followed by returning to our little apartment in Vallecas to sleep.
It’s true that Vallecas will never be as beautiful a place as Torrelodones. But, in reality, I can live in Vallecas without any sense of inferiority and with gratitude for everything I’ve received. I’m not living any less—I’m living life to the fullest. I can give my children and my husband what matters most: I can give them all my knowledge and culture, all my affection, and the love of my dear God.
In a neighborhood like Vallecas, there’s nothing we can’t handle. It’s not a homogeneous neighborhood; people come from a thousand different places and are a thousand different ways. I watch it all from my home, where I spend my days taking care of my little one, and I experience it all from the inside. And, in fact, within me, God is opening up new paths where I’m living a life I never expected. Filled with joy, I give myself over to this place and to the people of Vallecas—who speak, laugh, and cry out loud; who don’t stay silent about what outrages them; who shout with emotion.
And I believe the key to it all lies in one’s perspective. You can live in Vallecas looking down or looking toward the horizon. The difference, in my case, lies in a solid education in the humanities and in the teachings of my Catholic faith. My mind and heart are filled with passions, ideas, and interests that spring from nowhere else but the human soul. And everything my soul has absorbed, I carry with me wherever I am and wherever I live. A good education eliminates the arrogance of those who live well and the inferiority complex of those who live less well. The Catholic faith offers a way to approach any situation with a renewed perspective. From a sense of misfortune, you can arrive at a sense of privilege. From the experience of illness, you can arrive at an even greater experience of love. From Vallecas, a place of genuine humanity.
I am writing all this as a tribute to my husband, a fine man from Vallecas. We were not brought together by anything external, but by what each of us carried in our souls: a shared love for goodness, truth, and beauty.
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