denise Leora madre

Last night at the 86th Academy Awards, Lupita Nyong’o completed her sweep of the awards season with a win for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in 12 Years a Slave . As she gave an impassioned, gracious acceptance speech, concluding with “When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every little child that no matter where you’re from, your dreams are valid,” I found myself in tears. To be clear, I also cried during Jared Leto’s heartfelt tribute to his mother. And when Bette Midler started singing “Wind Beneath My Wings,” I fell apart at the first line, thinking of my dearly departed Ebony and the one and only time I’d ever watched Beaches . But there was no denying the way my soul soared when Lupita took the stage cloaked in glee and gratitude, no escaping how I felt her triumph on a personal level. And that surprised me.

Last night, Dale Earnhardt Jr won the 2014 Daytona 500, his first Daytona win since 2004. This win was especially significant for me as Dale is Horace’s favorite driver and won on Horace’s birthday. While at first ignoring the race, I could focus on the blog post I was supposed to share today, the follow-up to Friday’s DWD Challenge recap . I could zone in and out of the action because I wasn't invested in it. Then Dale joined the crowd at the front of the pack.   Blog forgotten and heart pounding in my chest, I watched those final laps with my every nerve on the edge of fraying. My gaze darted frantically among the speeding cars, clenching and wringing my hands when they bunched too close to one another. Having witnessed a number of crashes already, I don’t think I fully exhaled until Dale took the checkered flag...and that under Caution. And as I celebrated with Horace and Dale, something hit me: Investment yields joy.