Michelle Obama Arms

Or, The 8-Year Sitch

I love working out my arms. When I went off to college and joined the crew team—and started exercising for the first time in my life—I quickly learned that I’m the body type that builds muscle really quickly. I’m a sprinter, not a distance runner. Thicker and quicker, I like to say.

So when I work out my arms, I see results almost instantly. A tone, a lovely curvature of the muscles beneath the skin. It’s very motivating for someone like me, to whom delayed gratification is on par with torture.

I used to tell people I wanted “Michelle Obama arms.” In her eight years as First Lady, she often wore sleeveless dresses that highlighted her strong, healthy physique. I envied her arms so much.

Ben Baker / Redux

It’s a strange, slippery slope to compare your body to someone else’s, but I did it nonetheless. And I still do it, to this day. After a good workout—or even a day doing chores—I’ll look down at my arms, see the slightly-more-defined slopes of my triceps and biceps, and think, “Michelle Obama arms!”

I find Michelle Obama fascinating in other ways. I only recently learned about how, in her time as First Lady, she and her team calculated everything from her wardrobe to her hair to her demeanor. The bit about the hair really got me thinking—how she couldn’t wear her preferred braids because they didn’t think the public was ready for it. Unfortunately, I think they were probably right. I imagine she had to toe a very fine line between appearing too Black and not Black enough.

Goodness gracious … the things we humans decide are important. We often miss the mark entirely, don’t we?

Michelle and that husband of hers (Barack, I think his name is) have recently had to dispel divorce rumors, especially after Michelle didn’t accompany Barack to a couple of high-profile events.¹

Just saying “no” and prioritizing her own needs was enough to make people think her marriage was on the rocks. Wow. Michelle Obama really is a regular American woman.

On the episode of her IMO podcast featuring her husband, Michelle said:

There hasn’t been one moment in our marriage where I thought about quitting my man.

And we’ve had some really hard times, and we’ve had a lot of fun times, a lot of adventures.

And I have become a better person because of the man that I’m married to.

Well damn. That strange, slippery slope isn’t limited to physical comparisons. Because when I heard that quote, it shook me.

With hard work and dedication, I might be able to have Michelle Obama’s arms. But I’ll never be able to say there hasn’t been a moment when I thought about quitting my man.

(It’s very hard for me to tell the rest of this story without getting into specifics, but I’m going to try anyway and hope that the message still reaches the person it needs to get to.)

I’m calling it The 8-Year Sitch.

Four months ago—20 years into the relationship, and 8 years into the Hard Times—I was ready to leave. I was calculating potential budgets. I was looking at apartments. I was preparing, just in case it all came to an end.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it. But I was at a point where it was either save the marriage or save myself, and I was ready to save myself. I was utterly hopeless about our future. I felt like a complete failure. And then I heard that quote from Michelle Obama and I felt even worse.

But I’d tried everything. Literally everything I could think of to save it. And I was still miserable. I was still so sad and lonely every single day. And that’s no way to live a life.

So I was ready to go, which would forever make me not-as-good-as-Michelle-Obama.

And then things changed.

And now I sit here, in a new, light-filled house, once again in love with my husband, once again so hopeful for the future. For our future. Four months after I was ready to cash it all in.

I still find myself doubting that the change is real—that it will last. How could things have turned around this much, so fast? When will the bubble burst? When will reality break through what could only be severe denial or pitch-black blinders, the inevitable Truth finally out itself to point and laugh at me and my girlish foolishness?

For 8 years, I was on alert. For 8 years, I did not feel safe. For 8 years, I felt alone. So I suppose it would be asking a lot for that hypervigilance to recede in just 120 days.

So I sit here in the ambivalence of a life where things are going really well, but I can’t quite relax yet. I can’t quite trust it. And I guess that’s okay, because that’s how it is.

I found a new Aqua fitness class in our new community. I’m really happy with it; it’s giving me the exercise element I was missing at my old class—more resistance, more strength training, more muscle-building

My Michelle Obama arms are coming back. And that’s enough for now.

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1. I wouldn’t have wanted to go either, Michelle.