The woman I am now.

When I look back, I realize that I wasn’t truly aware of my leadership skills until a few years ago.

Despite moving a lot during my childhood and flying under the radar in high school, I began to develop that role when I started university. I think, in part, I inherited this from my father’s nonconformist personality, from that constant need to believe that things can always improve if you work at them with enthusiasm and commitment. At university, I was the class representative, and years later, already working as a teacher, I ended up becoming a school principal.

I believed things could be done better, that spaces could be more human, more beautiful, more practical, and warmer for those of us who shared them every day. However, over time, I understood something important: a principal's work is, for the most part, invisible. It’s a job that almost no one sees, that is rarely appreciated, and that doesn't show up on paper. It can only be truly understood by someone who has been there or has been part of a management team.

 

In my case, I started with immense enthusiasm. I wanted to improve things, to bring a change to the school—not only aesthetically (filling it with color, adding lockers for the students, or implementing practical and useful ideas) but also on a human level. I always tried to foster unity, a cohesive team, a sort of family working together toward a common project.

I did it for eleven years. And for a long time, I did it with passion and positivity. Despite the problems or incidents that arose, I started every school year with renewed energy.

But gradually, each year became more difficult. The staff would change almost entirely, and in the end, only about six or seven of us remained; the rest were always new. And that is exhausting. It is exhausting to constantly welcome people, teach them how everything works, and build bonds with wonderful individuals who then leave, leaving behind a significant sense of loss.

Each school year became harder. And then the pandemic hit, wiping out most of the emotional energy I had left. I faced contempt, insults, and constant complaints about the measures that had to be taken at the school—instructions that I simply had to enforce because they came from above. And I think that was the moment I began to lose my strength... or perhaps my enthusiasm.

My job stopped being a project I was passionate about and became a matter of constant survival: justifying decisions, feeling scrutinized, and living through very difficult situations with some families and colleagues, where any professional correction could be interpreted as personal.

I think it was then that I realized that, although I deeply loved my school, my colleagues, and my profession, everything was being prioritized over my mental health. And I decided to stop. Because no matter how much I wanted to do a good job, I couldn't stop loving myself. Just as someone leaves a toxic relationship, there are also times when you have to leave an environment that is no longer healthy.

And now, looking back, I am also aware of something important: throughout all that time, I was also a mother. My children were small. I went through a marital separation in the midst of it all, and I also carried that guilt that sometimes appears when we feel we have "broken" a family.

Today I look back and understand many things. And I also see that, in a way, everything has brought me here.

Because now I am inspiring, helping, guiding, and teaching again... but from a different place. I have found something that fulfills me deeply, gives meaning to my life, and connects much more with who I am today.

This year, everything is different. Working with adults, I have recovered something I thought was lost: my enthusiasm.

I am enjoying teaching, guiding, and helping once again. But this time from a much calmer, more human, and healthier place for me. My students value me immensely, they thank me constantly, and they make me feel something I hadn't felt in a long time: recognition.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful thing of all. Realizing that I hadn't lost my vocation. What I had lost was my peace.

After living for years in an environment of constant tension, criticism, demands, and emotional survival, finding grateful, warm, and respectful people now has been deeply healing for me.

People who know me often tell me when they see me:

"You look like a different person."

And I smile, because yes, indeed, I am different.

Calmer. Happier. More self-aware. More valued.

And I believe, for the first time in a long time, also more at peace.

Sometimes closing a chapter doesn't mean failing; it means choosing yourself so you can shine again from somewhere else.

A big hug,

Cris.