The Super Bowl. I cannot believe I’m performing at the Super Bowl! On the way to a news conference I'm screaming so loudly inside my head, I can barely hold in my excitement. Going to news conferences is always nerve racking for me because of all the cameras and the fact that all eyes are always on you. “Is it true you’ll bring children onstage with you? What can we expect from you two regarding the halftime show?” the interviewer asks. “Jennifer’s show and my show feel very different but very complementary to each other. We’ve been working so hard the past few weeks with early rehearsals dragging all throughout the day to make sure that everything is as good as we can make it and so everyone can enjoy the show.” Leaving the conference, all I can think about is being one of the two women headlining the Super Bowl. To me it is so amazing and humbling because 30 years ago, moving to Bogota, I never would've thought I’d end up being this successful in music. It's exciting because I love seeing the performances come together more and more every rehearsal. Finally, it’s the day of the super bowl; the day I’ve always dreamed of. Miami is the perfect place for me. I love the sound of the noisy crowd and the fact that people came together from all different backgrounds to watch me perform. I especially love our motive behind the performance which is to showcase and represent the Latino culture. “I feel lucky to be here but Jennifer and I worked extremely hard to get to this point.” A few days later, it's. the final rehearsal before the show and I feel weird that I’m more excited than nervous. I can only think to myself “don't mess up”. The hardest part for me to learn was belly dancing with the rope, and it was so hard for me because of the sharp and fast paced movement against a slow beat.
Sooner in the day and just minutes before the halftime show, a wardrobe malfunction happens backstage. I’m thinking “ There's no way I’ll be able to go onstage.” The wardrobe are stylists clipping and unclipping pieces but nothing seems to work. The resizing of the top and nothing seems to fit. It’s like everything I’ve worked for is useless now. We have 4 minutes to get onstage and I’m becoming anxious.. Luckily, all it took was a pin in the back of my top and I was ready. Even though I felt so unprofessional, I knew I had a great show ahead and any fix would be good enough.
Walking up to the stage I’m so exhilarated and now the nervousness is hitting me hard. I'm so worried about messing up instead of just enjoying myself. This is it; I’m here onstage. The cold air and the quiet crowd are two things that scare me the most in this situation. The time seemed to slow down and all the memories of how hard and how restless I worked rushed through my head. The music starts and fireworks shoot into the air like rockets. Everything is moving so fast-paced and the boisterous crowd jumps up and down. Running, jumping, and spinning all around the stage make my heartbeat faster than ever before. I jump into the crowd and I instantly feel shocked, I’m taking everything in. Everything slows down and it feels like I’m the only one in the entire world. Once I’m put back onstage the speed comes back and the song switches to my belly dancing interlude. I focus so hard on every single move because one wrong move and I risk ruining the entire routine. All eyes are on me and everything I do. There’s no more backup dancers or musicians, just me and the music. I figured if I just focused on the flow of the song there’s no way I'm going to make a mistake. My intuition didn't fail me this time. As I’m running off the stage for Jennifer Lopez’s part of the show, All I'm thinking about is how much fun I had. I want to do it all over again just to feel the energy of everyone in the stadium one more time.
After the show my family threw me a surprise birthday party over the phone. I was so happy because my birthday was the last thing I’d think my family would focus on today. Every emotion lately has felt so heavy on me and today was one of the few days where everything seemed to turn out great in the end. After so many sacrifices and so many hardships I’ve faced, I'm glad to see it wasn’t all for nothing. I’m glad to be able to just live life and take everything one day at a time. I enjoy the atmosphere of the super bowl and the fact that everyone is different but everyone is gathered together for one thing. Even though America isn’t the perfect country, the diversity is something that no place else has.