I missed the interview.  I saw the trailer and tidbits.  Sound bites and teasers, but I missed the interview with “the voice.” 

I whole heartedly agree with Oprah.  Whitney is “the voice,” at least for my generation.

Whitney has a remix CD she put out about 7 years ago that I absolutely love.  The Dance side is my favorite CD to work out to.

Never would I have imagined that her life would parallel mine in so many ways.

I finally sat down today to see if the interview was up on Oprah’s website.

Yes and No.  The entire transcript of the interview is – and it’s interlaced with little snippets of the video.

As I sat here in the quiet of my single-wide, the baby monitor humming in the background, and Soundscapes setting the mood, I sat riveted to my 16” screen.  I read.

I felt my mouth go dry.

I felt my chest get tight.

I felt my eyes mist over.

How could she and I live such similar lives?

No, I was never a multi-platinum selling artist, but I was a Superstar in my own circles.  I got to travel the country and stand up in front of people and put my research out there for everyone to critique.  I was popular and invited to come and speak at venues.  I was somebody.

Then he came along.

I made excuses for him.

I had the same determination to prove everyone wrong.

I had a strong desire to be a wife and a mother…just like Whitney.

The clock said it was time.

I cut myself off from my family too.

We had a long history of bad behavior.

We moved.  We got happy.  We had a baby.

He quit drinking.

We had nothing in common.

And then one day it happened.  Just like Whitney said, “I just knew. I was like, “You don’t smell right. You don’t look right. Something’s going on.”

Whitney moved her furniture and I packed my boxes.  The difference was this time I didn’t unpack them.  I moved them to the basement where they would be easier to get out when I moved out.  Not IF, but WHEN.

Just like Whitney, I asked him to leave 100 times.  And just like Bobby, he always said, “No, you leave.”

The difference is I could never say, “It’s my house.”

I loved my marriage.  I loved being married.  I just didn’t love the person to whom I was married.

When Whitney said, “Because I wasn’t going to be in an unholy matrimony. I wasn’t going to be living with a man who decided that he didn’t want to live the same way I did or thought about marriage or me the same way,” I wondered how she knew exactly how I was feeling at that point in my marriage.

When I read this, I knew it to be one of the truest statements she could make.  At some point you just know you can’t live with someone who doesn’t value you or the same things you value.  No matter how hard you try to keep it together, it always cracks at the seams.

It’s like that vase on the Brady Bunch that the kids glue back together so they don’t get in trouble for playing ball in the house.  Remember, they put it back like nothing ever happened.  But then somebody puts water in it and the next thing you know it’s bursting at the seams.  Water always finds the path of least resistance.

I left in a little more dramatic fashion than Whitney.  But we both knew that when the dirty little secret was exposed, we has some responsibility then to clean up our lives.  To be accountable for what happens next.

The rejection by him still hurts.  Maybe it’s his apathy that hurts.  He never came after me.  He never cared to – nor has he ever said he was sorry.  That’s how little he valued me.

And here I am in Montucknut because that’s where my children have to live.  Even when we’re not still married, he still has control.

Tragic irony or all part of life’s rich tapestry.  You decide.

Remember October is National Domestic Violence Month.

My Oprah Power Links:
Where to Get Help for Domestic Violence
Whitney Houston Tells All