Becoming

by Michelle Obama

The noise doesn’t go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people

I owned the fact that I was reaching. Given my background, reaching was really all I could do.

It’s a sensation I’ve come to love as I’ve traveled more, the way a new place signals itself instantly and without pretense. The air has a different weight from what you’re used to; it carries smells you can’t quite identify, a faint whiff of wood smoke or diesel fuel, maybe, or the sweetness of something blooming in the trees. The same sun comes up, but looking slightly different from what you know.

I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.

Or as Barack had put it that night, you may live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should be.

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.

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.