Melissa

“There’s no way to eliminate the ache of being human, but I do think we can diminish it. This starts when we challenge ourselves to become less afraid to share, more ready to listen—when the wholeness of your story adds to the wholeness of mine. I see a little of you. You see a little of me. We can’t know all of it, but we’re better off as familiars.
Any time we grip hands with another soul and recognize some piece of the story they’re trying to tell, we are acknowledging and affirming two truths at once: We’re lonely and yet we’re not alone.”
― Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

“Going high is work—often hard, often tedious, often inconvenient, and often bruising. You will need to disregard the haters and the doubters. You will need to build some walls between yourself and those who would prefer to see you fail. And you will need to keep working when others around you may have grown tired or cynical and given up.”
― Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

“For me, going high usually involves taking a pause before I react. It is a form of self-control, a line laid between our best and worst impulses. Going high is about resisting the temptation to participate in shallow fury and corrosive contempt and instead figuring out how to respond with a clear voice to whatever is shallow and corrosive around you. It’s what happens when you take a reaction and mature it into a response.
Because here’s the thing: Emotions are not plans. They don’t solve problems or right any wrongs. You can feel them—you will feel them, inevitably—but be careful about letting them guide you. Rage can be a dirty windshield. Hurt is like a broken steering wheel. Disappointment will only ride, sulking and unhelpful, in the back seat. If you don’t do something constructive with them, they’ll take you straight into a ditch.”
― Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

“The act of writing is a way to create another world in language, a dwelling place for the psyche wherein the chaos of the external world is transformed, shaped into a made thing, and ordered. It is an act of reclamation. And resistance: the soul sings for justice and the song is poetry.”
― Natasha Trethewey, The House of Being