2018: The Year I Learned to Cry

This photo was taken just before my very first therapy session. I remember feeling a little smug—like I was ahead of the game. I wasn’t going because I thought I needed therapy (how naive). I went because all the cool moms in my book club had minivans… and therapists.

Two of my close friends were seeing the same woman and raved about her. So I figured, why not? It felt like a no-brainer.

Looking back, I’m struck by how perfect my life looked on paper. Story of my life, really. I checked every box. I was the obvious choice: doctor, wife, mother, achiever. I don’t judge my younger self for that. That perfectionism served me well—until it didn’t.

Sitting in that therapist’s office, I was given something I didn’t know I was missing: permission to cry.

I think I went through a box of Kleenex every week for a month. I cried for everything I had never allowed myself to feel. I had been taught that sadness, anger, or disappointment were things to hide. That no one wanted to see my tears. That my value was in smiling, being pleasant, being productive.

I remember my first week of residency. I was struggling—like every new doctor does—and I started to tear up in the hallway while talking to my senior resident. She looked me dead in the eye and said:

“No. Do not do that here. You can cry in your car, but never let them see you cry.”

And that was the message I absorbed. Be strong. Be silent. Be professional.

Be perfect.

Maybe I’m thinking about this now because July 1st just passed. If you’ve ever worked in academic medicine, you know what that date means. New interns. New attendings. New everything. July is brutal. And full of tears. We ask med students to transform overnight into doctors—and then shame them for having human emotions about how hard that is.

By the time I started therapy, I had gone numb. I had armored up. And when the floodgates finally opened, I couldn’t stop crying.

That same year, I joined the inaugural WEL (Women’s Wellness Through Equity and Leadership) Cohort as ACOG’s representative. It was a pilot program for mid-career women physicians across specialties. And it changed my life.

There, I met Dr. Fan Tait—our fearless leader and the then-Chief Medical Officer of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She cried openly. Regularly. In front of all of us. Sometimes from joy. Sometimes from frustration or grief. But she never apologized.

She told us that she cries because things matter to her. And that’s not a weakness—it’s a gift. That concept blew my mind.

What if everything I had learned about leadership was wrong?

Or at least… wrong for me?

What if “relentless strength” was never meant for someone like me?

What if vulnerability is what makes leadership human?

That year—2018—was the beginning of a shift. A return to myself. A letting-go of the version of me I had built so carefully to fit a mold that no longer fit.

Some parts of my life had to fall away. And that’s okay.

I began bringing my full self into my work, my marriage, my family.

I began to trust the wisdom of my emotions—even the ones I was taught to bury.

And though the years that followed felt raw and tender, like walking through the world with exposed nerve endings, I wouldn’t change a thing.

As my dad used to say—usually at sunset, with a glass of wine and a grin—

“I could die tomorrow.”

And I think that’s 100% true for me today.

Not because I’m done growing, but because I’m finally living as my whole self.

Tears and all.