Michelle Obama Can't Wait to Live a Normal Life Again

Michelle Obama has already shot down suggestions that she’ll run for president, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stay out of the spotlight entirely.

The Washington Post reported that the First Lady eventually plans to set up an office with a small staff. The office will be run by Obama’s deputy chief of staff, Melissa Winter, who Obama described in an email to the Post as one of her “most trusted advisors and dearest friends.”

But first, Obama, who has used her post to advocate for education for women and girls and children’s health, plans to take a long break. Then, she’ll work with staff to figure out what she wants to focus her time on. “She has such a powerful voice. You don’t have to augment with a lot of things,” Winter told the Post.

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There’s been speculation that Obama will write a memoir after leaving the White House, following in the footsteps of other first ladies. Winter said that she thinks writing would be a natural fit for Obama. “I think she’d be a wonderful children’s book author. We haven’t set up a process for that, [but] down the line it would be a natural way to exhale from an experience like this,” she said.

But Obama has made it clear that, above all, she craves a sense of normalcy that she lost when her president took office. “Right now it is an empty plate,” Winter told the Post. “I really think the most important thing is to give her time to breathe and get acclimated to being a private citizen again.”

[The Washington Post]

 

 

Write to Samantha Cooney at samantha.cooney@time.com.