Where She Still Lives.

Tears don’t come easily to me. When I was little, I was taught to hold them in. “Oh, don’t cry, honey,” or just “Stop crying”—as if crying weren’t okay. A tear or two might be tolerated, but anything more had to be wiped away quickly.

My mother didn’t cry much either. She kept her past and her feelings mostly to herself, rarely showed emotion—aside from love, of course. No one in my family really cried. The emotional range seemed limited to either “okay” or “happy.” Anger showed up occasionally, but it was usually shut down just as fast.

But crying is just as human as laughing or shouting with joy—so why does it still feel so wrong? Maybe it’s because some of us were conditioned to believe vulnerability is weakness: awkward, uncomfortable, even shameful. And despite all the work I’ve done to unlearn that belief, it still lingers. It runs deep in my family. It’s a tough one to break. 

I’ve always been drawn to people who feel deeply and express it freely. People who could let a good cry wash through them without the impulse to shut it down. In my twenties, I had a close friend—still a dear friend to this day—who was beautifully in touch with her emotions. She taught me that love isn’t a word reserved only for romantic partners. She told her friends and family she loved them. Openly. Freely.

When she was heartbroken—after a loss or a breakup—she would take to the bed. She’d cry, watch sad movies, eat pizza and brownies. She let herself feel it all. Cried and cried until there were no more tears left. And then, one day, she’d get up and begin again. I found that so powerful. I saw only strength in her openness. It was beautiful—and completely foreign to me.

I didn’t know how to do that.

For years, I struggled with intense panic and anxiety. My nervous system would crash without warning, and I had no idea why. The turning point came when I finally asked myself a simple but important question: Why is this happening to me?

That question led me inward. As I began to more deeply explore the process of healing, I saw the connection between my physical symptoms and my emotional world—or, more accurately, the absence of one. I realized I hadn’t learned how to feel, or that it was even safe to feel. And when you don’t know how to feel, your body finds a way to feel for you.

Just understanding that made it a little easier—safer, even—to be me. I’ve learned that vulnerability and safety are very connected. If you don’t feel safe, it’s nearly impossible to be vulnerable. And vulnerability doesn’t always show up in the form of tears. Sometimes, it’s simply being honest about what you need, or admitting that you’re not okay.

I had to trust and let help in. That’s not easy, especially when you’re still haunted by old habits and patterns. But letting people in—present friends, a loving family, and the guidance of a good therapist–made all the difference.

I used to believe that the depth of my grief could only be measured by the number of tears I shed, that if I wasn’t crying, I wasn’t feeling it deeply enough. But I’ve come to understand that grief and pain wear many faces, and tears are only one of them. There are so many ways to release what we carry inside, and it looks different for each of us.

Today, for me, it looks like writing. Tomorrow it might be tears. I’ll let it move through me however it needs to.