my date with oprah winfrey.

so an absolutely amazing thing happened this week.  i would even go so far as to call it a small miracle because that's what it felt like to me.  my friend tasha, who is on a trip in miami right now, emailed me on tuesday to say that she'd won 2 tickets to see oprah speak tonight, here in montreal, and that she couldn't use them because she was away and did i want them.  thank you, jesus.  thank you, lord.  thank you, sweetest tasha.

so my other friend lise and i went to see oprah speak tonight.  like it was no big whoop.  except that it was a major fucking whoop.

jacked on aha moments.

i don't know what i expected it to be like.  i guess i just thought she'd talk about her life.  i knew everbody's boyfriend, the adorable george stroumboulopoulos would be interviewing her.  i figured that it'd be good, and, of course, i adore oprah so i was super jazzed but i what i did not expect was that it would blow my freaking my mind open.

i'm not going to rehash the whole night but... a few things...

first: as soon as she walks out, everyone in the bell centre (that's about 16 000 people) stands up and cheers so stinking hard and for so freaking long that O starts to weep.  WEEP!  are you following what i'm saying?!  right there.  on stage!  the woman who has had every amazing and touching and awesome experience a person could dream of having in one lifetime is so moved that she is balling right before our very eyes.  so lise and i and every woman seated around us weep right along with her.  needless to say that we knew we were in for a heartfelt night.

she spoke alone, for most of the night, and george just came out for the last half hour or so.  the whole thing lasted about 2 and a half hours.

she's hilarious.  lise and i laughed our heads off, and i don't even really laugh out loud that easily but she was a stinkin' riot.

we also had a few cries, and we both felt like we had to hold it together because it was so moving, at times, that we could have just ugly-cried for hours.  i actually almost asked lise to take a picture of me crying because i thought that'd be a funny thing to do but then it also seemed like an insane thing to do so i 86ed the idea.

my biggest take-homes from the night were:
1- that you have to do the work... you have to do your part to prepare yourself as best you can for the life that you want for yourself... and then you surrender and let life/the universe bring you what is meant to be yours. you get yourself ready and prepared as best as you possibly can, for whatever it is that you want, and then you let go, and whatever is meant to be yours will be yours.

2- getting what you don't want in life is as important a lesson, if not more, than getting what you do want. so when you get what you don't want in life, when you're faced with hard times, life is saying: "it's time to move in another direction". i hope i can remember that... that getting what you don't want is also a gift, an opportunity to grow.

3- that instead of waiting to figure out or find your purpose, you can bring purpose and meaning to whatever it is you're doing now.

lastly, and this is maybe only amazing if you're me but i'll share it anyway...
when the night started, i was thinking of my all-time favourite oprah story, which i've posted on here before and which you can watch here if you like.  it's the story of how she got her role in "the color purple".  and so the night starts, and i'm thinking to myself: "man, i really wish she would sing 'i surrender all'" but i'm also thinking there's no way that's going to happen because i'm probably the only person sitting here, secretly wishing for this.  and what ends up happening?  oprah tells the freaking "color purple" story and sings 'i surrender all', that's what.  miracle within a miracle.
i could explode, my heart is so filled with joy.