I used to call certain activities and feelings “humaning.” I used to find some egotistical amount of pride from the fact that I didn’t need to “human” as much as other people. The fact is, I did need to, and depriving myself of my human needs wasn’t actually making me better. I discovered this in a big way with my failure as a chamber musician last semester. When I didn’t attend to my own needs, my relationships suffered and my art suffered.

Lately, when I’ve started to get grumpy I’ve decided to assess. I ask myself “did I eat properly recently?”, “did I sleep enough and well?”, “did I have enough positive social interaction lately?”, “have I received/given enough physical affection lately?”. Usually, if I’m grumpy the answer to one or many of these is no. Admitting to myself when I’m depriving my human needs has improved my health but also my relationships.

For example, yesterday I got my menstrual cycle for the second time in a month. Yes, it’s still taboo to talk about cycles even though 50% of the world gets them. But here is the thing, my emotional and physical needs are completely different on my cycle. Because of my history with endometriosis and my irregular cycles, I’ve learned that I actually have to listen to my body really carefully. On the “hard weeks” I have to eat the foods that make my body and I happy, I have to get more sleep, I need to exercise more to deal with the extra hormones, and unfortunately I do actually need to allow myself to cry. Allowing myself to cry when I have an excess of emotional energy because of biology actually makes me much happier. If I allow myself to cry when I need to, then I’m much more relaxed and much less grumpy.

I’ve decided to accept my humanness on “the hard weeks” and all the weeks and that has made me a better friend, a better sister, a better daughter and a better colleague.

Sometimes I need to feel my sadness or feel my anxiety all the way through so I don’t suppress it and become grumpy or angry or mean. It is much better to process the emotions I’m having than to push them down and ignore them until they become a big problem.

Once a month, my body makes me feel sad. Usually my external circumstances are exactly the same, but something about my physical body and the chemicals in my brain just makes things feel different. But I don’t need to get mad at myself for it, or fight it. I can just see it for what it is, the monthly sad. (Or sometimes, the twice monthly sad, haha) I don’t have to accept the sad thoughts as truths or as permanent things. I can simply say “right now I’m sad because of my biological functions and that’s ok.”

We don’t talk about these things sometimes because they’re “embarrassing“, but they are also just human. Do I perhaps get more sad than normal women on my cycle? Yes. My therapist once suggested I might have PMDD which causes an extra heavy emotional response to the cycle. But, I’m not the only woman who has ever felt like that. And In fact, even women who don’t have PMDD or something resembling it still get sad on their period. It’s part of women’s lives, and it’s ok.

So if you get sad on your period, even though it literally happens all the time, and you’re literally an adult, I’m here to tell you that it is ok. All that means is you are human.

If you feel sad because you want a partner and you don’t have one that doesn’t make you weak, that makes you human. If you feel sad because you’re 27 and your body is starting to tell you to have a baby even though you’re in school and it’s not the time, that doesn’t make you weak, that makes you human. It is ok to want a partner, to want a family, to want love. It is ok to feel sad, to feel anxious, to need time to process. None of these things make you weak they just make you human.

Embracing my humanness and tending to my human needs has improved all my relationships and also my work.

Artistry is more moving when it includes ALL of life’s feelings, not just the ones that aren’t “embarrassing.” If I play Bartok thinking about all the hard weeks and all the things I’ve wanted and been unable to have (as of yet), it is a much better performance. If I play the Romeo and Juliet suite thinking about the crush I wish I didn’t have, it’s much more expressive and interesting. Art is BETTER not worse when we express all our feelings, not just the pretty ones.

In the words of Viola Davis: “It’s very, very important that we tell the truth in our art because it makes people feel less alone.”

This post is pretty open and honest and vulnerable — some might say too much so— but if it makes at least one girl or one person feel less alone than it will be worth it.

Allow yourself to feel all the feelings. Allow yourself to be human. Allow yourself the space you need to deal with the trials and triumphs of the human experience. You deserve it. 💛