Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice

She let us in. Decade by decade, she lays it out. She’s just like all of us. You will get to know her better than you know even your closest friends. It’s captivating and enlightening. Her childhood in Chicago and young adult life at Princeton and Harvard were filled with family, friendship, loss, love, community, dignity, ambition, laughter, and great memories for us all to enjoy. She painted the pictures so well. I loved her stories about Barack Obama and her mother. I learned quite a bit about POTUS. What a well-written, first-class memoir!Going doing in history as the best FLOTUS ever, mainly because she had a full 8 years to engineer so many initiatives and touch so many lives and also because she is still young and motivated. She has many more years of impact, including her initiatives—Let’s Move!, Reach Higher, Let Girls Learn, and Joining Forces. The day she and President Obama left the White House, forty-five million kids were eating healthier breakfasts and lunches; eleven million students were getting sixty minutes of physical activity every day through our Let’s Move! Active Schools program. Through Joining Forces, they’d helped persuade businesses to hire or train more than 1.5 million veterans and military spouses. On education, she and Barack had leveraged billions of dollars to help girls around the world get the schooling they deserve. More than twenty-eight hundred Peace Corps volunteers were now trained to implement programs for girls internationally. And in the United States, she had helped more young people sign up for federal student aid, supported school counselors, and elevated College Signing Day to a national level.All this and they managed two terms in office without a major scandal. They held themselves and the people who worked with them to the highest standards of ethics and decency.I must add that I was a tad set back regarding her comments regarding her speech stating ‘she was proud of her country for the first time as an adult’ and of comments about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama seems to not take accountability for this statement, seemingly backpedaling and blaming the media. I was hoping she would own up to it. When your great-grandparents come to America greeted with ease, new opportunities and wealth creation, you are very proud of America. However, when your great-grandparents come to America greeted with chattel slavery, family separation, and murder, well, the proudness is a "stretch goal". This should be understandable for all those who know true American history. It adds context of the shameful history of black people in this country. Juxtapose this with the Rev. Wright headlines and it's like crying foul on one move and chastising someone else (Rev. Wright) for a similar move. She wrote that, “Barack and I were dismayed to see this, a reflection of the worst and most paranoid parts of the man who’d married us…”. Obama's extreme judgment on Rev Wright's "spitfire" preaching, and "narrow-mindedness" seamed very dismissive. She recognizes that this is the mindset of those who'd come of age in a time of segregation, yet used language such as "absurd" and vitriol" to him. When her senior thesis was discovered as to be a black power manifesto, however, she called it "small-minded" and "ludicrous" of the media. She said she was young and naïve. They listened to scores of his sermons throughout the 1990s, yet it's not until 2008 that they are appalled. They distanced themselves for political reasons in 2008 from the man and continue the same narrative and direction. This was, as I believe, to pave the path for their standards of decency. I concluded that her perspective has evolved at a level that none of us will fully understand. She’s sat in kitchens of Iowans, had adorable conversations with the Queen of England and has heard stories of tens of thousands of everyday people. I put this all in perspective...no doubt, and love her like a big sister nonetheless.Her experiences at 54 are incredibly rich, like none other, and we should all be wholly inspired by this memoir.

Despite my waning eyesight and the horrific pain that is part and parcel of living with a terminal illness, I couldn't put this book down. For 2 straight days, every moment I was awake was spent with Michelle Obama's written voice, reminding me of better times when I'd dared to feel emotions such as hope. The Obamas have only been retired for 2 years, but it feels like 20 lifetimes have passed. If there is anything even quasi-positive that can be said of the current, hideous presidency, it's that trump has managed to make whatever time I've got left feel excruciatingly longer."Becoming" is a bittersweet read, but excellent nonetheless. After finishing it (I even read the acknowledgments!) I closed the book and cried for a bit, allowing myself to wonder for the first time how different my illness might have turned out if the GOP cared even 1/100th as much as the Obamas did and do about the wellbeing of ALL Americans. Put bluntly, had the Republicans not put an axe to Obamacare, I might have stood a chance. I might have lived long enough to welcome my first grandchild into the world or travel to all the places I've only dreamt of experiencing. At the very least, were it not for a vestige of slavery known as the electoral college I'd be able to afford medical care and medicinal relief from the all-consuming pain.Beyond how the book personally affected me, there is so much to be learned from it. From little bits of trivia (I had no idea the 1st family has to pay for their own food and highly doubt the current occupants do) to the Obamas relationship with Queen Elizabeth II, "Becoming" was utterly absorbing. It was heartwarming and at times heart-wrenching to watch President Obama's ascent through his wife's loving eyes. You could tell how much it affected the 1st Lady to see her husband grieve over the death of his mother, a doting mom who--had she been able to hold on just a couple months more--would have seen her son elected to the US Senate. And then to watch the very same thing happen all over again to his grandmother directly prior to being elected President of the United States... lets just say you really feel for all affected parties when reading the story through Mrs. Obama's eyes.What was especially refreshing was the candor with which the book was written. She didn't gloss over her personal imperfections in the hopes of coming across as saint-like nor did she whine about the unfairness of things Republicans and the media did to her even though it would be understandable if she had. (She's definitely a stronger woman than I am!) All in all, the beauty of the book was in the realization that Michelle Obama unfiltered is just as inspiring, hopeful, and dignified as the Michelle Obama who'd been constrained by the office of 1st Lady for 8 years.It's impossible to finish this book without remembering how truly lucky we were as a nation to live under the loving, devoted leadership of a man wholly dedicated to serving our country with every fiber of his being. He gave 110% of himself even to those who'd made up their minds to despise him. I have to say it broke my heart reading about all the Obamas did with and for the military when that same military all too often talks of him like something they stepped in. O'Neill, for instance, the Seal who happened to fire the kill shot at bin laden, frequently disparages President Obama on Twitter. (He also makes sickening references to the way he killed 1 of bin laden's sons.) O'Neill looooves trump of course--a treasonist, KGB loving coward--but disparages the very man who gave that Seal his opportunity to go from an unknown soldier to a recognized somebody. Unfortunately, O'Neill is neither the 1st nor last seal I've heard discuss President Obama in a negative light. That newly elected congressman with the eyepatch who got into it with SNL recently said on "New Day" that seal morale is high under trump, but was low under Obama. I don't know what the hell is being taught to the seals, but the vast majority of the ones I've heard speak have been blatant racists. What has trump done for them other than be white? He doesn't visit combat zones, he disparages gold star families, and he couldn't be further up Putin's ass if he tried to be, but morale is high? Ooookay.Despite 8 years of watching Michelle Obama be called everything from an ape to a "tranny" she still believes in going high when others go low. Pat Robertson was scandalized when she dared to wear sleeveless dresses, but claims melania trump's nude lesbian photos are "art." This alleged Christian man saw neither grace nor beauty in Michelle and her daughters, but insists that the KGB plant living in the white house (aka Svetlana "I Don't Really Care Do You?" trump) has both of those attributes. Umm... really?! The woman has had so much plastic surgery that she barely has eye sockets left. But melania is a white, racist, unapologetic birther so the "good" pastor apparently finds grace and beauty in her anyway. (Come to think of it, Pat Robertson is probably the seals' official spiritual advisor.)I don't give a damn what the racists say; Michelle and her daughters are gorgeous inside and out. Their beauty isn't bought in stores or under a plastic surgeon's scalpel. Their toned physiques and radiant skin pay testament to lives lived healthy, happy, and well. Their regal features are striking in their elegance and beauty. And come on now, Michelle Obama's ever so slight overbite is downright adorable!Michelle Obama remains my 1st Lady just as President Obama remains my president. I genuinely admire their ability to go high, but I don't think I'm capable of becoming that person again. Every day I grow a little weaker, every day the pain becomes a little less tolerable, and every night I go to sleep knowing the odds of waking back up become less favorable each time. This book took me back to a better time and place, to the person I'd been the whole of my life prior to 2016. I thank Mrs. Obama for that parting gift. I'll sleep tonight feeling more at peace.*****UPDATE 9/24/19*****I’m happy to say I’m still ticking (knock on wood!) After almost dying in the hospital, I was able to get an in-state waiver which—long story short—allowed me to receive Medicaid. Medicaid doesn’t pay for as much as one would hope so I still struggle to get the care & meds I need, but at least I have some level of care and some meds now. A big thank you to those of you who reached out to me with your uplifting words filled with genuine kindness :)