Former first lady Michelle Obama discussed stepping back and making time for herself on a podcast released Tuesday, addressing her recent absences from political events and rumors of marital troubles.
Speaking of her life eight years out of the White House with two adult children, Obama said on the “Work in Progress” podcast with actress Sophia Bush that she now has the opportunity to control her own calendar and can now make “a choice for myself.”
“I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn’t give myself that freedom,” Obama said, “Maybe even as much as I let my kids live their own lives, I use their lives as an excuse for why I couldn’t do something.”
She continued: “And now that’s gone. And so now I have to look at my — I get to look at my calendar, which I did this year, was a real big example of me, myself looking at something that I was supposed to do — you know, without naming names — and I chose to do what was best for me, not what I had to do, not what I thought other people wanted me to do.” (CNN)