[2021-05-19] Becoming
Today, I finally finished listening to Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming. Every moment of the 19-hour audiobook was meaningful and satisfying to me. I hadn't realized until today—but was not at all surprised—that Michelle's recording of her book won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. She narrates her story in a deliberately unhurried and exceptionally articulate manner, which kept me hanging on her every word.
What struck me this morning, as I listened to the book's Epilogue, is that Michelle was 54 when she finished her memoir—the age I am today, the age I have been throughout my cancer journey. My ears perked up when I heard her say, "At 54, I am still in progress, and I hope that I always will be." I, too, continue to be a work in progress, and hope to develop and grow for many years to come.
As she brings her story to a close—a story that traces her life from infancy to her departure from the White House more than five decades later—she says,
When your term is up, when you leave the White House on that very last day, you're left in many ways to find yourself all over again. I am now at a new beginning, in a new phase of life. For the first time in many years, I'm unhooked from any obligations as a political spouse, unencumbered by other people's expectations.
Many transitions engender this same feeling—a need to find and sometimes redefine ourselves all over again, particularly as expectations change.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was an Assistant Deputy Minister, playing a pivotal role in federal-level communications during an international health crisis. Because of the intensity of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had let so many aspects of my life atrophy: relationships with family and friends, exercise, sleep, my physical and mental health. But then I became the patient. I pulled back from one role to take on several new ones. I replaced a global crisis with a personal crisis—though, admittedly, one that affected not just me, but everyone who loved me as well. I shifted my focus from the health of a nation to my health. Over time, I rebuilt relationships with my family, my friends, my walking shoes and my bed, all of which helped to bolster my physical and mental health.
Listening to Michelle's book has been tremendously inspiring. I am struck by her humility, her determination and her self-reflection. She continues in the Epilogue:
For me, becoming isn't about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn't end. I became a mother, but I still have a lot to learn from and give to my children. I became a wife, but I continue to adapt to and be humbled by what it means to truly love and make a life with another person. I have become, by certain measures, a person of power, and yet there are moments still when I feel insecure or unheard. It's all a process, steps along a path. Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there's more growing to be done.
Since facing cancer, I have focused primarily on today—very little on tomorrow. I have often said that I want to live each day to the fullest, but I have not dwelt on my continued development. Perhaps it felt too much like tempting fate to contemplate Jen of the future. Michelle's passage makes me think that it's time to consider what I still have to learn from and impart to my kids. It's time to enjoy the next phase in my life with my husband. It's time to ponder the areas in which I can yet grow and contribute.
Michelle concludes her book with this powerful statement:
I'm an ordinary person who found herself on an extraordinary journey. In sharing my story, I hope to help create space for other stories and other voices, to widen the pathway for who belongs and why. I've been lucky enough to get to walk into stone castles, urban classrooms, and Iowa kitchens, just trying to be myself, just trying to connect. For every door that's been opened to me, I've tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say finally. Let's invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It's not about being perfect. It's not about where you get yourself in the end. There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.
Michelle has unquestionably used her power and her story to connect with many people, to open doors for others, and to highlight how we are more alike than different.
Like Michelle, I am an ordinary person who has found power and meaning in allowing myself to be known and heard, to own my unique story, and to use my authentic voice to inspire, encourage and empower others.
