What I Know For Sure

Dear Oprah,

What I know for sure is that I cringe at  endings. As much as I like change, look forward to what's next and love the start of anything new, especially a good book, I get twisted up when something ends. And that is how I feel now.

I don't like that my DVR will not be clicking in at 4PM every day just to make sure I didn't miss a really good show. I don't like that a reasonable voice in a sea of media insanity will be harder to come by. I don't like that I haven't published my novel in time to get you to pick it for your book club. I don't like that you are choosing this particular time, when the world is in such turmoil and so much is shifting and changing to give us one more upset.

But I do understand what it means to get to that point in a long and good run when you know you have to end it. That it is the only way to make room for something new.

I started this blog when I made a choice to leave my corporate career after, yes, 25 years, that magic number, because my core spoke to me and told me there was no other choice, not if I wanted to keep growing. It was time.

What I know for sure is how it feels that first Monday after the last day when you get up and make the coffee and realize you don't have to go where you used to go. When all of those familiarities of daily life are missing until you create a new set.  I have lived with the challenge of taking on something brand new, listening to people question your decision, and live with nothing more than trust and faith that it will all work out, it always does.

A lot of people say they grew up watching you. I like to say we aged together. I was born at the other end of the same year you were. While in so many respects our upbringing was vastly different, we were both raised in a world of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best in which women were portrayed as changing light bulbs in their high heels. And because of that I marvel even more at what you have accomplished.

What I know for sure is your influence knows no bounds. In a day of sensationalist interviewing, you maintained professionalism and class, allowing your viewers to reach their own conclusions without feeling they had been arm wrestled. And for that you won clout and our respect.

My favorite quote was in the NY Times on Thursday when they said "Ms.Winfrey blends the mystical and the practical better than anyone else in show business."

It is the mystical that is the divine feminine and the practical that is the male and only in balance will the world be healed.  You've helped to set that healing in motion. For that I thank you.

Less than three weeks after you launched in 1986 my father died. I couldn't imagine the world would go on without him.  But it did and so will ours without  Oprah at 4.

As for you Oprah, what I know for sure is that you will build OWN to be worthy of your name. I also know change is not without its bumps no matter how much you sought it. So feel free to stop by my blog and peruse some of the early entries. I'm told they can be helpful :)

Your fan, 

Joanne