It is never too late to choose yourself

I earned my master’s degree when I was 57. Carrying books and walking to college classes was something neither of my parents had done. My higher education had been put on pause when I dropped out of San Francisco State University at 21 to travel the world with my future husband. Shortly after enrolling, I met Carlos Santana and the thrill of flying to London, Paris or Rio de Janeiro to hear the band play took precedence over attending school.

We started following a guru, not uncommon in the 1970s, and I bought and remodeled a restaurant, creating the vegetarian menu and managing the staff. It was like an education to learn the business and be part of the thriving San Francisco restaurant scene. 

In my 30s, Carlos and I left the guru’s meditation path and started our family with three children. We built a home, which became a sanctuary where our parents, relatives and friends could gather. I volunteered in the children’s classrooms and drove them to music lessons, summer camps and sports practices. It was a busy life, and I wanted everything to be perfect, or at least successful. 

Eventually, Carlos and I took the helm of Santana Management with the professional assistance of attorneys and accountants, and I stayed up late at night to do my work as chief operating officer and vice president of the business. It was easy to put others’ needs before my own, but I also craved to access my creativity, and I wanted to return to college. 

I was from the generation of liberated women who said, your ideas and lack of understanding of female power will no longer constrain us. I studied writing with Natalie Goldberg and Melba Beals, and began to write my coming-of-age memoir in between the duties of home and work. The “soft animal of my body,” as Mary Oliver describes in her poem “Wild Geese,” began to love the writing, and I desired to put my life at the center of it. Over the next few years, I gathered the courage to question if I could have a more authentic life, one born of my own thoughts and intentions. My daily meditations kept me in close relationship with my soul’s purpose, and I affirmed that I deserved to live a new life. It was born of years of knowing that the roles I was playing were outdated and not allowing me to live fully. 

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Searching for understanding, in therapy, I discussed conflicts I hid. My therapist asked, “Do you try to protect others by concealing the dysfunction in your marriage?”

My heart pounded yes.

“I guess I wanted the world to believe all was well in our home.”

On March 10, 2007, at the age of 56, I left the life I had known for more than three decades. I released Carlos, my partner of 34 years, so that I could thrive.

Everything familiar fell away. I resigned from the business I had helped build and released the work that had filled me for 13 years. Most of my friendships and relationships shifted. Some disappeared entirely. People reached out to Carlos with concern for him — but I felt I was walking through the fire alone. I sat in meditation each morning and touched the essence of who I was. I heard my mother’s voice whisper, “Respond to everything in love.”

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I had identified myself by my marriage, summer trips to Europe, the abundance of rose bushes and apple trees in our garden, or by my three children, their beauty, and how well they did in school. But I realized what constitutes a glorious life is the liberation of hearts and minds.

I was at the precipice of beginning to know this new self — no longer bound by my past. The freedom urged me to be gentle with myself, to release my ideas of what a good, meaningful life consisted of for anyone other than me.

My new direction required bravery. I pushed my fears to the back seat and allowed calmness and confidence to sit next to me. I crafted my life to be in alignment with my values and created my Do A Little Foundation inspired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s words: “Do your little bit of good wherever you are. It’s those little bits put together that overwhelm our world.” My mission was to support women and girls in the areas of health, education and happiness.

I followed my instincts and intuition, smiling because I felt in harmony with my inner nature, and I began to attract people to my life who could honor, respect and love me for me. I missed what I thought our marriage could be, but not what it had become. I spent hours in silence as my life shifted to a new reality. There was bliss in being with myself and beginning a new life that centered on my spiritual journey. The issues from my past were reconciled through my meditative mornings and daily walks in nature that covered me in healing and God’s love.

Each morning, I awakened and breathed in love, knowing that I did not need to earn it or work for it. I only needed to believe that I was worthy of loving myself. In this expansiveness, my love for humanity grew.

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I saw clearly that the fire I walked through to reach this new life of liberation was not meant to consume me, but was the force that transformed me. It burned away what my heart needed to leave behind. I finally understood that no matter how difficult it may be, it is never too late to choose yourself.

Almost 20 years have passed since the day I left my marriage. I have learned that nothing is permanent — not love nor grief, not joy nor sorrow. Everything ends; everything begins anew. 

In my master’s degree studies, I read about other cultures that have matriarchal societies, where kinship, clan names and social positions are passed on through female lines. One of my first educational excursions in my graduate studies was to Mexico where I visited Yanga, a small town named for Gaspar Yanga, who freed hundreds of enslaved Africans during the 17th century.

I wanted to understand why people migrated to other countries, so I interviewed an Afro-Mestizo family on their verdant land. Two years later, I was introduced to the Daraja Academy, a free secondary school for girls in Nanyuki, Kenya, and traveled to the campus to meet students who believe education is the only key to success. All of this opened my understanding of life and empowered me to continue my journey. 

My children, now grown, gather in my home and we enjoy meals together with enriching conversations. We discuss the happenings in the world from our family’s activist standpoint, which was gifted to us by my parents’ bravery as an interracial couple in a time that didn’t accept their union. My grandchildren give me more joy than I ever thought possible, and their souls offer medicine to heal us all.

I have promised myself to never abandon my purpose and values again — never to assign my life a lower priority to support a partner whose life demands more attention than my own. I am grateful for the three-plus decades I was married because I was truly in love, but the price of losing my luminous connection to my own intimate nature was too high. I wish for others to follow their own light to find certitude in life. As Maya Angelou said, “Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise.”

Deborah Santana is the author of “Loving the Fire: Choosing Me, Finding Freedom” (April 21, 2026), “Space Between the Stars”(Ballantine 2005) and editor of the acclaimed anthology “All the Women in My Family Sing.” She holds a Master of Arts in philosophy and religion with a concentration in women’s spirituality and is founder of the Do A Little Foundation to serve the needs of women and girls. She is a leadership donor to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and a lead investor in the Courage Museum. Find her at deborahsantana.com. 

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