Letting Go

Today was Oprah Winfrey’s last show after twenty-five years on the air.
That means that when her show first aired, I was a teenager.

That’s also when the path began to be laid for my future and my impending “Oprah Experience”.

When I was a junior in high school I did a presentation in my psychology class on Anorexia Nervosa. After addressing my class with a slide show and speech, my teacher pulled me to the side and asked if I ever considered going into communications.
It wasn’t something that I’d ever really given serious thought to.

I had been influenced by a popular radio D.J. in my area, “Sunny” Joe White.
I loved his style, his delivery, his personality and his baby blue convertible Mercedes!
I spent a lot of time in my bedroom as a teenager and I spent a lot of time listening to my favorite D.J. as well.
I joined my school’s radio station and was bitten by the bug.

Years later, my dream became a reality and I began a career as a radio “personality” and later a news reporter and talk show host.
My two major influences were “Sunny” Joe White and Oprah.
To this day, whenever I’m interviewing a guest I always try to make it as conversational as possible and make them feel comfortable.

I always wanted to be a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show and I would peruse her website daily to find topics that were the perfect fit for me to appear on her show.
After months of searching, I found it; “Have you let yourself go? Do you need a makeover?”
My co-host, Bud and I devised a plan for me to get a makeover and get on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I mean, hell, I was hosting a morning show; I woke up at four a.m. every morning and sat in a small studio with just me, my co-host Bud and microphones. There was no reason for me to get cute every morning. I rolled out of bed every morning, took a shower and threw on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt.

Bud took some pictures of me and sent them in, along with a letter about how he was tired of looking at me every morning.
I also sent in a letter stating that I realized the first step in recovery was realizing I needed help.
I never really knew what would come of our little scheme, but we must have done something right because a few weeks later I got a call from one of Oprah’s producers!

We probably talked for an hour or more. I figured if we were on the phone that long, that things were looking pretty good for me and pretty soon I’d be getting a wardrobe from Neiman Marcus and my hair styled by Andre Walker.
She asked me about my life and I explained to her that I was newly divorced, in debt up to my ears, my oldest son was leaving for the military, my life revolved around my kids and I didn’t have any time for myself.
Somewhere during our conversation I began to get emotional and tried to hold back tears. I apologized.
“Nooo… cry… go ahead, let it go”, the producer urged.

A light bulb went off in my head and I realized that I had forgotten what I was dealing with; this was the Oprah Winfrey Show! In her twenty five years on the air, there must have been enough tears shed to fill the Gulf of Mexico!
If tears were what it took to get my makeover, then I was going to channel Tammy Faye Baker!

She asked me to produce a video diary of my life for a week.
I taped myself waking up at four a.m., at work, picking my son up from school, taking him to football practice, grocery shopping, sitting in parent/teacher conferences and much more.
They gave me a Fedex envelope and shipping number to send the tape.
After a few days I got a call from the producer that they would like me to do another week’s worth of taping.
I felt encouraged.

During that time, my boyfriend and I were planning a trip to Tobago for my birthday. I had been having trouble getting my passport because my birth certificate didn’t have a raised seal on it and since I had a name change, my original birth certificate was at the state capital, very close to where my sister was living at the time.

I called my sister, asked if she would pick it up for me, faxed a consent form to the birth certificate office and waited for my sister’s call.
Nothing…
Later that evening, I called my sister to find out what was up.
Long story short, she was told when she got to the birth certificate office that it would be about a forty-five minute wait and my other sister convinced her that I did not NEED a passport to go to Tobago (I didn’t NEED one to go to Tobago, but since this was after 9/11, I needed one to get BACK into the U.S.!).
She told me that she couldn’t wait forty-five minutes; she had to get home to do her laundry because she didn’t have any clean panties! I expressed the importance of me needing this birth certificate and that it was a five minute drive for her, compared to a six hour round-trip drive for me.
She wasn’t sympathetic.
I was livid and before I went to bed that night, I turned on the video camera and began my rant.
“I’m sick of this (mess)! I’m tired of having to do everything by myself! I try to help people out whenever I can, but when I need a little bit of help I’ve got no one to rely on… no one to turn to.”
I went on for a few minutes, shut off the camera and went to bed.
I had a six hour drive ahead of me the next morning.


Several weeks passed. My boyfriend and I were returning from our Caribbean vacation and had a layover (ironically) in Chicago when I turned my cell phone on and was bombarded with text and voice mail messages from my girlfriends.

“Girl, you on Oprah!”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were gonna be on Oprah?”

“Oh my God! Turn on the TV, you on Oprah, girl!”

The next message was from Oprah’s Producer, “Hi Single Mom, thank you very much for sending in your video diary. We have not selected you to be on the show, but we will be using portions of your video diary. The show will air next Thursday. Thanks again.”

By the time I had received the messages, Oprah had already aired in my city.
Luckily, my boyfriend was on Pacific Time and was able to set his Tivo from his computer.
He sent me the segment and I was able to watch it when I got home.
WHY, WHY WHYYYYYYY??? Of the hours upon hours of tape I’d shot and of ALL of the activities I was involved in, did they select my angry rant?
I’d forgotten who I was dealing with… This was the OPRAH WINFREY SHOW! OF COURSE they would opt for the emotions!

Before each commercial break, the show aired video montages of women who had “let themselves go”, along with their names and (shudder) ages.
There I was, ranting and venting my frustrations.
Little did I know how my outburst had been interpreted.

The next morning I returned to work. Loyal listeners of my morning show that had seen my rant on Oprah began calling the station.

“Girl, keep your head up!”

“It’s gonna be alright girl… We all go through it.”

“Be strong girl.”

It was my guess that since I had been away for a week and then they saw me pitching a fit on Oprah that they must have thought I was having a breakdown or something tragic had happened in my life during my weeks absence.

Little did they know that my tirade was all over dirty panties.

The Oprah Winfrey Show is done and I’ve missed my opportunity to sit on her stage. I guess I can still say that even though I didn’t actually set foot in Harpo Studios, I was STILL ON the Oprah Winfrey Show… That counts for something, right?