March 8
It's funny how we never know where our strongest assets lie until we have the courage to try something new. I was hired to be a keynote speaker at Texas A&M University for the 13th Annual student conference on Latino affairs. I flew out to Houston and caught a connecting flight to College Station where I was met by a young woman from the University. First thing, I was amazed at how large the airport was in Houston. This thing wasn't an airport, it was a city! A very big city!
I was winded by the time I got from where my plane landed to the gate for my connecting flight! That wasn't all though! I knew I was in for it when I walked through my gate door and I was greeted by the great big Texas outdoors! It's not a good sign to me when I have to walk across a tarmac to get on a plane.
Remember I was born in a small Central American country where the passengers cheer when the plane lands safely! No, we are not an extremely joyous people, we are just grateful it landed all in one piece!
Secondly when I was a cop I was on a tactical Special operations Unit for over 6 years.
If you're walking on tarmac, it means you were either going to jump or repel out of a perfectly good plane/helicopter!
So you see why I wasn't too thrilled here?
Anyway I boarded the sardine can, I mean plane. I had a bag of peanuts thrown at me and before I could eat the last one we had landed! There is a God!
I walked through tarmac again to the tiny airport (looked more like a car rental place!) When I see this sweet-looking, Latina woman, holding a brightly-colored card with my name on it!
I walked up to her and introduced myself only to be greeted with a very heart-warming "Howdy!"
Yeah, I knew I wasn't in New England anymore! She took me to the guest facilities they have at the University and asked me what time I would like to go to dinner.
I wasn't sure so she said she would call me later to check! When I was alone I looked around the room then it suddenly hit me, how far the little "bookworm" from Cambridge, Massachusetts had come.
No, I wasn't Oprah, not yet anyway, but I was someone people were willing to pay to hear speak!
It was unbelievable to me!
When I was growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cambridge I just wanted to be invisible.
If I was the center of attention it meant I had gotten someone mad at me and I was going to get it. By "it" I didn't mean a prize either!
It meant I was going to get an old fashion belt-whopping! As a result of that I was very quiet and kept to myself.
I tried not to speak in school because either the other kids would make fun of me because I was considered a bookworm or I would get caught by the teachers for something someone else did and wind up in trouble either way!
Making friends had come easy to me when I was little but as I got older it got harder and harder to connect with people.
It was funny because as a young girl I had dreams of being a big movie star someday!
I dreamt of bright lights and my name in huge letters on Times Square.
My mistake was sharing those dreams with my family and they made sure they laughed them right out of me, until there was nothing left of them but a faded memory.
It wasn't until I became a police officer that I started to find my voice again.
Or should I say find my voice, period! But in reality it wasn't until I was in my second marriage that I realized I had a story to tell.
I don't remember the first time I spoke in front of a group or what I said.
What I do remember was people coming up to me afterwards telling me how much I had moved them!
I really thought they were just trying to be nice. But soon more and more people asked me to speak and more and more people told me they were touched by my words.
I didn't give it much importance until one day when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.
I told Mel that I felt like I didn't have any special talents I could use to succeed in life.
I knew there were a lot of things I could do well, but there wasn't one thing that I was awesome at!
"You really don't know what your gift is, do you?" he asked me.
"Would I be sitting here asking you if I did?" I asked totally exasperated.
"Someday I'll tell you!" He said with that annoying sly smile of his.
"Unless you want to become the latest murder statistic for our city you better tell me now!" I threatened.
"Okay, okay, back off killer", he said, "You my lovely wife have the gift of gab!"
"Oh, great, I'm a big mouth! Terrific, I can really go out and conquer the world now!" I replied almost in tears.
"No, you have the gift to talk to people and touch their hearts, their souls. You shake their foundations, and help jump start their dreams again!"
I was shocked to say the least.
It still took me a few more years before I realized he might be on to something.
As a result of that conversation, here I was in Texas, getting paid to do what I loved, talking to people! Helping them find their dreams again. Giving them courage to believe in themselves!
Using a talent that I would never had discovered had I not had the courage to soul search to find it.
Even more important, it was a result of doing the one thing that I was totally afraid to do.
I guess I felt the fear and did it anyway! Now if only I can tell myself that flying in a sardine can is okay too!
