#2. She can cry

I grew up tough. Not by accident, but by design. My mum was a strong, sharp, resilient, and deeply practical woman. And I mirrored that. Until I was about sixteen, I don’t think I knew another way to be. It wasn’t unkindness. It was survival. It was how love looked in our house.

But I remember this one moment so vividly. I was around twelve, visiting my uncle’s house, a place that always felt like a pause in the rhythm. Something had upset me, and I started to cry. I didn’t cry often. Maybe I didn’t let myself.

My little cousin Otto, who must’ve been six at the time, saw me. He froze. Then he ran to his mum, shocked and wide-eyed, and said, “Mamá, mamá, she cries. She can cry.”

I’ve never forgotten those words.

I think about what he must have seen in me. How composed or untouchable I must have seemed. And how surprising it was to him that I was soft underneath.

That memory comes back to me often now. After years of building, immigrating, and raising a family. After all the people who’ve shaped me, stretched me, and softened me in ways I never expected. I’ve changed. I still carry my mother’s strength, and I value it deeply. But I’ve also unlearned the idea that strength means holding everything in.

I wonder what Otto would see in me now. We haven’t seen each other in over 25 years. But I hope that if he did, he’d see someone who still cries not because she’s weak, but because she’s full.

What’s a moment from childhood that showed you how others saw you, and how do you see yourself now?