What Michelle Taught Me
I originally wrote this in 2017 for the website Heard Tell. With Netflix ‘s release of Becoming , thought I’d reshare.
The last break up I experienced happened this past January. I’m still processing it.
The relationship started off slowly, cautiously even. To be honest, I was unsure if we could take it to the next level, but we did and for the most part enjoyed eight years. Alas, some relationships have a natural end-date in sight, whether it’s a romance ignited by graduation, study abroad, or term limits.
That’s how I think about my relationship to the Obama years, and more specifically with Michelle Obama.
For whatever your (imaginary) relationship with Michelle Obama was, for however she influenced your life, there’s an essay for you in The Meaning of Michelle: 16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own edited by Veronica Chambers. This book, published in January 2017, shares 16 impressions of the myth, the woman, Michelle. I read it in March 2017, a mere few months after Former FLOTUS and POTUS took a well-deserved vacation to live their best lives. I initially read a review of it in The New York Times Book Review pre-Inauguration when I was probably still in the disbelief stage of grief. Not solely with the election results, or even with losing President Obama, but with the fact that Michelle, our Michelle, was leaving the White House stage after serving eight years. One of the essayists stated it best: “I would argue that she represents at least 60 percent of what America will miss most about the Obama presidency.”
The polls back Rebecca up. I don’t know you or your political affiliation, but there’s a good chance you liked Michelle Obama. With a Gallup approval rating of 68% in January 2017, I feel pretty good about that statement.
Maybe you thought of her as someone who kept it real, while her husband kept it professorial.
Maybe she reminded you of your best friend, your mom, or your favorite aunt.
Maybe you liked that she made eating vegetables cool.
Maybe she inspired you to dress like you gave a damn.
In Michelle, I saw a woman who I could aspire to, but also relate to. She was beautiful and accomplished, poised, yet familiar, and yes, after a history of First Ladies (and Presidents) whose life experiences, let alone skintones, did not resonate with me, Michelle did. Before Michelle, my favorite first lady was Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a politician, diplomat, and activist in her own right at a time when women were relegated to the domain of the home exclusively. She is unique in history not only because of her husband’s historic campaigns and elections (twice), but because she went to the White House and made it her own, while also making it more ours.
What did I hope to gain from reading the book about Michelle at a time like this? A reprieve from reality? A chance to reminisce about the “good old days” when Michelle was still our First Lady? To be affirmed that although Michelle was magic, didn’t mean she was any less real (word to Jesse Williams!)? Maybe I wanted validation that my t-shirt with white lettering that simply reads, “Michelle Taught Me” wasn’t stupid or overly emotional.
I share Roxane Gay’s’ sentiment from her essay: “Whenever I think about Michelle Obama, I think, ‘When I grow up, I want to be just like her. I want to be that intelligent, confident, and comfortable in my own skin’.”
I admired how she seemed to bring her authentic self to whatever room she was in and decided that I, too, would and could do the same. The collection was cathartic as the authors reiterated some of the innate qualities that made Michelle so magical. It was like being in a support group for other broken hearts. While I think it’s too early to tell the impact that Michelle Obama has had on a macro level, I don’t think it’s too soon to reflect on how personal her impact felt at the individual level. Seeing her in the press and on the world stage for eight years mattered.
Phillipa Soo of Hamilton fame stated it perfectly, “The Obamas have shaped my journey as an adult in a profound way.” In her essay, appropriately titled “Best of Wives and Best of Women” she uses her insight playing Eliza Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton’s wife to argue for Michelle’s place in the pantheon of political wives. Like the essayists in the Meaning of Michelle collection, I loved the Michelle who was shared with the public and took from this presentation (as real as I believe and need it to be) lessons that I’m only beginning to reflect on. I saw how she supported President Obama throughout his presidency and used that as a model for being a good partner to my beau while he studied for the bar exam. From Charlaine McCray, First Lady of New York to Marcus Samuelsson, a guest chef at the White House, each essayist shares how they interpreted Michelle Obama. The common theme of all of the essays was that like a Rorschach Test, each author saw in Michelle what they wanted or needed to see. Some saw and highlighted her grace in the midst of partisan and sometimes racial criticism, others saw her as an inspiration to working moms, and others the culmination of our ancestors’ wildest dreams. The constant theme is that she meant so much to so many. Tiffany Dufu, one of the essayists, explains it this way, “That is why she resonates. American society has a knack for punishing complex women. We like them to fit one mold. But because Michelle lives in the middle, no matter who you are when you look at her you see yourself.” She mattered internationally, but also intimately.
Similarly, at the end of a relationship, I want to know that it mattered. That I mattered in some way. That my time and energy and attention and hope and love, weren’t in vain. I want to see photos of Michelle and Barack on vacation and be able to smile wistfully and think of the good times. I want closure. For now, I’ll take solace in what she said in her own words in her last speech as FLOTUS that being our First Lady has been the “greatest honor” of her life … and that counts for something, doesn’t it?