Mikey The Lifegiver

"When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't even know from which direction the sun rises anymore."
― Elizabeth Gilbert

"The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud - the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one. "
― Goldie Hawn

"At heart, I have always been a coper, I've mostly been able to walk around with my wounds safely hidden, and I've always stored up my deep depressive episodes for the weeks off when there was time to have an abbreviated version of a complete breakdown. But in the end, I'd be able to get up and on with it, could always do what little must be done to scratch by."

― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

Part One: Mikey, The Lifegiver

Mikey is oxygen. Oxygen: the right amount lets you live and by extent do all the best things. Too much and you are smothered, you are overloaded, you beg it to stop. Too little and you're choking, gasping, dying, suddenly wishing you had lived just a little more. That's Mikey.

Raph is fire. Mikey fuels him. Mikey soothes him. It's really hard to have one without the other. Raph will consume Mikey's overload. Mikey will absorb Raph's fury in a sweeping embrace. They will collapse in a tangle of snapping and growling and laughter. Mikey's powerful insight into Raph's emotions maintain stability and health.

Don is earth. He is steady and waiting, quietly absorbed in his work until Mikey reminds him of the need for chemical fuel and how the air whispering through the trees can make the world dance. Mikey already knows his brother's brain because he is the other side of the coin. Their minds blend well, between logical and creative.

Leo is water. He is steady and swift, rushing down a well worn path or creating new paths to flood, whatever it takes. Mikey pulls him back and reminds him not to drown himself in his burden of keeping the clan safe. Sometimes the brook is heard laughing as the wind ripples across. Mikey keeps him floating and steady because he knows just what his biggest bro needs to relax.

Splinter knows that keeping Michelangelo in good spirits is the glue that holds the team together. He sees the extraordinary almost supernatural raw potential and wants to carefully draw it out. Because oxygen is dangerous under too much pressure.

People underestimate Mikey. They have no idea how to respond or react if he were to explode. But that explosion would be magnificent and unique, shattering and crumbling, tearing him apart and painfully putting him back together, leaving him breathless and renewed, no matter how wounded or hurt or distressed. He continues. In the hollow depths of depressive nothing, Michelangelo endures.

And so Mikey knows exactly how to handle himself, his darker emotions, his deeper primal desires. His emotional fortitude has been honed by years of painful sibling teasing and personal worries that he's not a perfect ninja. But he doesn't need to be. He's a wild card. And he is so mind-blowingly physically gifted that his body is supernatural. He can take on the world. He can support the precious lives around him easily. He is their air. He's their sunlight. With Mikey, life is all right.