Michelle Obama made glorious news this week with her incredible Giving Tuesday donation. While I think we were all elated by her generosity, few of us were surprised. This is who she has routinely proven herself to be. As First Lady, she endured so much disrespect, slander and hate and she only ever handled it with grace. She had the right to leave the White House with two middle fingers held to the sky and never look back. But she didn’t, she hit the ground determined to do all the good she could with the programs she put in place. I really do find her extraordinary. So extraordinary that I sometimes forget she’s a real person. Michelle is one of People Magazine’s People of the Year and she spoke about her hugely successful book tour for her memoir Becoming. But what she said surprised me, because she spoke about how nervous she was to go out and expose her vulnerabilities in that way.

“I recognize now that the memoir and the tour were really different than
what I’d done before — I wasn’t promoting a policy or rallying votes; I was out there, alone, talking about my feelings and vulnerabilities,” Obama tells PEOPLE. “That’s enough for anybody to lose a little sleep.”

At the tour’s first stop, in her hometown of Chicago, Obama stopped first at her old high school to meet with students in one of her old classrooms. It was then and there that she began to feel gratitude for the experience that had only started to unfold for her.

“I asked how many of these girls didn’t feel like they belonged in a room with me. Almost every girl raised her hand,” Obama recalls. “That’s been the most powerful part of the last year — talking with all sorts of young people about how the things that we think are our inadequacies are usually our strengths. The simple act of sharing our fears and vulnerabilities helps us embrace our own stories and recognize how much we share with one another.”

Indeed, she says, “Everywhere I went — from Detroit to Copenhagen, Vancouver to Atlanta — I saw this generosity of spirit: people sharing the truth of their lives, no matter how messy or imperfect, as a way to offer each other a little more grace.”

[From People]

I can’t quite explain it, but the line about Michelle asking the young ladies who felt like they didn’t belong in a room with her really spoke to me. Not only because I would have raised my hand, but about how much Michelle is connected to the people in this country.

As for the insecurities of which she speaks, putting them in context like she did makes them so much more relatable. It would be easy to write these off as empty comments because, c’mon – she spoke at the Democratic National Convention, how can Barnes and Noble intimidate her? But again, that’s not her point. It was the subject that freaked her out and that she was speaking as Michelle Obama the person, not the First Lady. I know that not making the effort to get out and see her on her book tour will be a regret I will always carry.

I’m going back and forth on Ellen DeGeneres’ latest feel-good show, Ellen’s Greatest Night of Giveaways. I love that sappy stuff but I’m a little soured on Ellen right now. Then I watched this clip in which Michelle walks into a school and the reaction from those children and teachers and, yeah, I’m here for it. I’ll just turn to something else for the Timberlake bit.

Photo credit: People and WENN Photos