Today’s Challenge: Turn bad choices into life gifts.

I went to see Oprah on Friday night–I skipped the rest of the tour, because I really just wanted to see Oprah. She spoke for almost two hours about her life. I feel blessed that I was able to experience this amazing woman live. Although I had heard some of her life stories before, I love the reminder that when bad things happen to us, our lives often move in a better direction. This has happened to me many times… and even if I don’t see the positive in the experience right away, I know deep down that there is a lesson for me to learn. I wrote about this many years ago in my first novel, The Gentlemen’s Club: A Story for All Women. Angie, went through some hard times of homelessness and being assaulted on a bus, but she always knew that with every bad experience, something good was at work. These two experiences of Angie’s, were actually my experiences, and I’ve had many more… the one I thought about yesterday, was when I was in seventh grade, I spent the night with a friend whose father had a cupboard full of hard liquor. We thought it would be a brilliant idea to drink some, but because it was my first experience with hard booze, I over did it and became very sick, unconscious. Long story short, ever since that night, I’ve never liked hard liquor, or mixed drinks. I consider this to be an amazing gift. Don’t get me wrong, in my early twenties, I loved to drink and go crazy and have fun with my friends, but I only drank beer and I kept track of the bottles so I wouldn’t get drunk, unless of course that was the goal. 🙂 These days, I don’t drink at all. I’ve had too many people I love hurt by alcohol so I’ve just decided to skip it all together, besides, I’m a hell of a designated driver!