Oprah's Long, Long, Long Goodbye

I can't tell you whether Oprah Winfrey will have a show on her new cable network, OWN, after she shuts down her existing show in two years.

I can't tell you whether she'll be taking any of her experts with her, or whether Ellen DeGeneres will benefit the way some people expect, or whether those who have made money from Oprah — or The Oprah, or whatever we are calling her now — will ever find a replacement for all that good-feeling, soul-nourishing dough.

Here's what I can tell you: the next two years are going to be so insufferable that they will make you forget all about the multiple, tearful, overwrought, tooth-gnashing farewells to Brett Favre.

What this will be like, and early and ominous video of Oprah's announcement, after the jump.

 

Seriously: Consider that, particularly in the last eight to ten years, The Oprah Winfrey Show has become your one-stop shop for inspiration delivered directly to you via fire hose, knocking you back against the wall as inspiration goes right up your nose, whether you want that much inspiration or not. You will be inspired, and you will like it, and all of us will have feelings and we will talk about them.

Oprah encourages us to embrace our overinvestment, especially in ourselves. Oprah is all about celebrating your personal greatness. Your personal glory. The spaces between your personal toes and the lint accumulating therein. Learn to love your toe lint!

Oprah's ambitions in the area of self-improvement are limitless. Not for her the simplistic self-help of 30-minute meals or how to beat kitchen clutter. No — with Oprah, it is nothing less than discovering how to live Your Best Life. Whatever life you have right now, unless you can honestly argue that it is your best possible life, Oprah has something to tell you, and that something is that your life could be better, and she can help.

In 25 years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, there is no emotion that has not been taken out and examined, fondled and caressed, inspected and X-rayed. Oprah celebrates happiness. And sadness. And pain. And fear. And fearlessness. And possibly vertigo and nausea. The Oprah Winfrey Show is where veins are opened.

Into this environment, we now introduce a goodbye that will last for two years.

Think of your most emotional relative. No, not the one who sobs at the door when you leave after a visit — the one who sobs at the door when you go to the drugstore. Imagine that you have to begin saying goodbye to that relative at 7:30 in the morning on Tuesday, but you are not allowed to actually leave until 4:30 on Friday afternoon.

Oprah's departure is going to be like that. Don't believe me? She's got two years to go, and it's already like this:

(Not to be a doubter, but what luck that the moment that feels right in her spirit coincides with the end of her contract and the beginning of her new cable venture. Way to go, spirit!)

Retrospectives will be plentiful, in all likelihood, both within and without the show. Moments That Made Us Cry. Moments That Made Us Laugh. How To Continue Living Your Best Life Without Oprah. How To Get Out Of Bed In A Post-Oprah World. Oprah's Extra-Favorite Things. Helping Your Cat Get Over Losing Oprah. Oprah's best giveaways, best interviews, best experts, funniest moments, most embarrassing screw-ups, greatest road trips, and most life-affirming fits of uncontrollable sobbing. You are going to see every single one, and it's going to last two years.

There will not be a celebrity who will not want to drop by for a farewell visit and a kiss on the cheek and a reminiscence. Oprah will weep with her friends. She will reconcile with her enemies. She will part the Red Sea and achieve cold fusion.

These will be two long, long years.