No Matter Where You Start In Life...You Can End Up Somewhere Wonderful

Yesterday I wrote a letter to Maria from Sesame Street.
It might surprise you to know that her real name is Sonia Manzano. She's now in her fifties and is two-snaps in a circle fabulous!
Why do I think she’s so hot?
What's so special about a lady who's spent the last 30 years conversing with Muppets, teaching kids to count in Spanish, and Spanish vocabulary words like agua and amigo?
For starters, she’s been taking care of her business since her days growing up in the South Bronx when she attended the High School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan—you know, the school from the movie Fame.
Sonia’s swag-sheet has got more inches than well…Big Bird.
She’s a 15-time Emmy award winning writer for Sesame Street (who knew?), a celebrated author of children’s books, a stage and movie actress, a public speaker, writer of a pro-Obama blog for Catalina magazine, and entrepreneur of a Latin-inspired home décor company. She’s also shopping around her newly written memoir.
Now how is it that I’ve gotten on the Sonia Manzano cheerleading squad, you ask?
Well, while flipping channels during a recent quiet evening at home, I stumbled across an episode of Sesame Street.
And there she was: thick, black, glossy hair now shoulder length, much shorter than the mane she’d rocked during the 80s. There are laugh lines creasing her eyes and lips where there once were none, but she still has the same ole warm, familiar smile and shining brown eyes. As I said in the letter I wrote her, seeing her again on my TV screen was like being “instantly transported back to my childhood.”
It also got me wondering, Damn, how long has this woman been on this show? Is her name really Maria? Is that guy Luis really her husband? Is the young woman who portrays their now-grown-up daughter, Gabriela, really their child? Can you tell me how to get…how to get to Sesame Street, so I can get some answers?
Of course Sesame Street isn’t a real place the way I hoped it was when I was a kid, so unless I find a way onto the set of the show, I don't suppose I'll get to ply Sonia with my list of questions. But thank goodness for Google ‘cuz it was there that I found some answers. I typed “Maria from Sesame Street” into the search engine and she popped right up on my computer screen.
Raised in a Spanish-speaking home in the Bronx, Sonia struggled with English and writing during her years at the High School for the Performing Arts. Most of her classmates were from affluent families, traveled the globe and moved in high-culture circles. She, with her Puerto Rican immigrant parentage and working-class background, did not share that lifestyle. “The other students conjugated French verbs at the dinner table and visited Europe during the summer. I struggled the whole time,” she says.
Before high school, Sonia received an elementary education that had been modest at best and she found it difficult to contend with her classmates who were far better prepared scholastically. She described her high school years saying, “I went from being an ace student to being a total failure.”
But she had teachers who encouraged her and urged her to apply to universities that would admit her based on a performance audition and was eventually accepted to Carnegie Mellon University. Amazingly, while still in college, she acted in the Broadway production "Godspell" and was also cast to play Maria on Sesame Street.
Her role on Sesame Street connected her to a feeling of purpose in her life, and this led to Sonia's career in writing. She began writing scripts for the show that highlighted Latino culture, and found that she wasn't just teaching kids words and numbers in Spanish, but becoming an ambassador for cultural acceptance. Before long, her Sesame Street role--which she had originally planned to be temporary--stretched into 30 years, and a ripe opportunity to teach, write, act and serve as a role model to countless little girls, while lighting up the lives of people around the world.
Imagine that...a woman who, at the outset of her life, had difficulty writing basic American English is now a 15-time Emmy award winning writer of a successful children's television show and an author.
Now that's inspirational!

Disappointments are Inevitable, Misery is a Choice

I just watched one of my favorite most inspirational speakers: Joel Osteen. He's the charismatic, Colgate smile wearing, glossy-haired televangelist known to ignite his uber congregation with sermons centering on positivity and the Creator's planned goodness for us all.
Yes, at first glance he might appear to be a slick snake-oil salesman with a Cheshire cat grin. Initially you might be suspicious and think he's just another fast-talking preacher peddling hope to the desperate masses in exchange for their hard-earned dollars. You might be waiting for the "shakedown" when he asks for viewers to send a dollar amount in exchange for his prayers on their behalf.
But eventually, you'll be pleasantly surprised that the man stays very focused on delivering his message and spreading the power of positivity. He emphatically stresses that the Creator has a plan for each of our lives. That we need only have the faith to follow it.
He always sprinkles jokes in his sermons. Mary Poppins always said a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and Osteen wisely blends his biblical based message with the perfect pinch of laughs.
I often catch two different sermons from him on Sunday evenings. One comes on at 8pm, the other 12 midnight. I just finished watching one in which he discussed disappointment, something I've been struggling with these past few days.
Thankfully, it's been a wonderful weekend. A weekend that rendered my disappointment a distant memory as I indulged in a great conversation with a young guy who, with his brother, started an online magazine for which they'd like me to be copyeditor; laughed with my spouse and enjoyed our time spent at our 71-year-old uncle's surprise birthday party; watched a movie with my sister, and read some interesting books.
It's been a relaxing and soothing weekend that was just what the doctor ordered. I know my last post was pretty angry. I considered deleting it, but am trying to learn to accept the full emotional spectrum and to give each shade it's respect and outlet.
But Osteen said tonight that, "Disappointments are inevitable, misery is a choice." He went on to caution that we not let "the sun set on our anger."
It's okay to feel disappointment that things haven't gone the way you wanted. But you owe yourself the wonderful release of letting your disappointment out at the end of the day. Don't hold it in, don't harp on it, don't let it marinate. Just like a computer, shut your disappointment down at day's end, allow yourself the mental, physical, and psychological rest and then reboot in the morning. But for goodness' sake, don't tug the disappointment around day after day like a sack.
So I have faith that in this thing called life, good things await me. Through all the sharp turns, the unexpected occurrences, and yes, the disappointments, I will keep the faith and believe. I believe that the Creator is making a way for my big dreams to come true. After all, like seeds in soil, he planted these dreams in my heart, tucked them safe in my soul so that they'd germinate. I give it all to Him and surrender to Him to show me the way. To guide me. To lead me. I thank Him for His mercy. For the love he has filled my life with. For my loving spouse, my mother, father, sisters and friends. For the peace he gives me. For this life and this adventure he has blessed me to have.

Ugggh!

The urge to feel down on myself is so tempting sometimes.
Once again, I'm working as an administrative assistant in a field I have absolutely no interest in. I am so sick of stapling, copying, collating, booking conference rooms and performing every conceivable type of monkey work that I am beside myself. Sometimes I feel like I can't stand it another second.
What the hell am I doing? I keep asking myself.
Don't get me wrong. I've got a B.A. in Journalism with a minor in business. Did the right thing. Went to college and earned a pricey degree. Now what?
Now that I've been tossed from the secure cocoon of my university and flung out into the Darwinian cut throatness of the real world...NOW WHAT????
Where the hell are all the jobs? Where the hell are all the great salaries we were all promised so long as we were good little students and went to college?
Yes, there are times when I've felt hoodwinked, bamboozled and like a damn fool for jumping through so many hoops to finally get my coveted degree. But words are a creative force, and a life of regret is not what I want to build for myself.
I'd rather live a life of hope, fulfillment and meaning.
I'd rather reach out and light up someone else's life so that the lightbulb can switch on for my own.
Sometimes I feel so tired of feeling like I'm stumbling around in the dark. So tired of feeling like if I'd have known then what I know now, I'd have done it differently. Sometimes I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up. Feeling like where I am now is where I ought to have been three years ago. Feeling like I'm never where I should be, when I should be there.