Oprah and my thoughts

I've been catching up on my Oprah's from when I was not home last week. There have been some great shows and last night was a great catch up night for me. There was the show about people's body image and that was very enlightening to me. They talked about how sometimes your insecurities can come from within your own family or "group". There were some black adults and teenagers on the show who talked about their insecurity with how dark their skin is and how it is looked down upon to be really dark. There was an Asian girl on the show who grew up very insecure about not having creases in her eyes. Weird to me, but a very real reality to her. This show made me think about the little things that families kid each other about all in fun. Do these sometimes lead to real insecurities? Can joking leave scars on the inside. I heard a saying one time that said ... Sarcasm leads to SCARcasm. Kinda cheesy, but I think we apply it to our lives and make sure our sarcasm isn't scaring someone for the sake of a joke. There is a running joke in my family about my dad, my brother and I having big noses. YES we do have the same nose and it could be considered on the bigger side, but I will say that I am pretty self conscience of my nose and notice it in every picture. Could the joking have gone too far? Is my brother also self conscience of his nose? My dad? Just something to think about next time you "joke" with someone about something.

The next Oprah was about the crisis of young black men not excelling in school and the percentage of them that will end up incarcerated was very alarming. Something has to happen to intervene for these boys. Their life has to take a turn. Hill Harper (I think that was his name), from CSI:NY was on there and has written a book about helping these young men grow into great young men that value education and have dreams for themselves. I loved this episode and it was a little wake up call for me. I ordered the book and hope to learn lots from it.

The last Oprah was the kicker for me. I was moved to tears throughout the entire show. I saw my family in the show in more ways than one. This family was traveling home from a wedding in a limo and was hit head on by a drunk driver going the wrong way on the road while driving 70 miles per hour. The limo driver was killed instantly, the grandparents in the back were thrown forward on top of the other family members, the husband broke his back, the wife had minor injuries, one daughter lived and the other daughter was decapitated. Her mother literally stood on the side of the road and watched them pull out her family while she held her daughters head in her arms. Their life will NEVER be the same because of the choice of one man to drive even though his blood alcohol level was 3 times the legal limit. He lived and is serving 18 years in prison.

I saw my family here because this could happen to anyone. This family did nothing to bring this on. They were merely driving home from a joyous occasion and their life was changed forever. Their daughter will never be back. The fear of something happening to my boys causes my emotions to loose it and fear to run through my body.

The second way I saw myself in this story was as the drunk driver. No, I don't drink and drive now, but I have many times in the past. In my last two years of high school and first three years of college I lived a very promiscuous and dangerous lifestyle. I participated in lots of drinking and too many times to count drove myself and others all around town while I was intoxicated. I am very embarrassed to admit this and also very thankful that nothing like this ever happened while I was driving drunk. Why didn't I ever wreck? I will never know, but I do know that anyone that drives drunk is capable of doing something like this.

So, there is my Oprah recap for the weekend! I love when her show can expose problems that I feel I need to be aware of, and also to help me see things in my own life that can be changed or can used to help someone else.