ALL the feels.

Three days — and two big performances — are all that remain in my career as principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

It’s been over a year since I announced my decision to step down, and I expected to experience a lot during this long year of “Both/And.”

What I didn’t expect was that a kind of healing would take place.

I’ve spoken about my decision many times this year in public settings. And I’ve gotten choked up every single time. (Not with sadness, but with deep appreciation for what I am leaving behind, right next to genuine excitement for what’s next.)

Getting choked up might not sound surprising to you. But this is new for me. Allowing emotions to the surface hasn’t felt possible for most of my career as a performer.

Elite performers have big feelings, just like everyone else — but we can’t let our feelings overwhelm us when we have a job to do. We have to manage them.

In my own performing life — influenced a little by my temperament, and a lot by my lived experiences — I didn’t just manage my feelings. I often completely walled them off.

My first years in the orchestra were difficult. (I’m not alone in this.) I experienced a lot of harsh and unhelpful criticism from peers, while also having to deal with a mercurial (at best) music director who held all the power — and my job security — in his hands. During those years I learned how to play beautifully while afraid, to bury the hurt, and to not allow self-doubt to undermine my performances.

I was strong. I played with expression and creativity and character and beauty.

And to make that possible, it felt like a small part of me turned to stone.

More than a decade later I found myself in that same mode (but exponentially more intense) when I performed under the searing international scrutiny of my equal pay lawsuit, which stretched from 2018 into 2019. I played at the highest level during that time too, day after day, month after month — and in the process it felt like even more of me turned to stone. 

Not everyone responds to pressure in this way. I don’t recommend it. And I imagine some of you can relate?

So allowing my feelings to rise to the surface in public this year has been new.

It’s felt good.

It has been healing.

I still don’t fall apart on stage — this doesn’t serve the art form or the audience — but in these other contexts, getting in touch with those feelings and letting them be seen has helped me feel more integrated, more complete, more human.

(Strong emotions have bubbled up onstage, too, this year. Mostly in the loud parts where I could get away with some quivers in my sound.)

Will I shed tears at my final concert? Maybe … but maybe not. The truth is that I’m at peace and I’m inspired and ready to dive fully into my next chapter.

So my plan for these final three days is to do what I set out to do all along, which is to complete my role here with excellence. This means that if big emotions do arise, they will have to wait until those last notes are played and my job is done.

But allowing those feelings to bubble up in other places throughout this final year has felt surprisingly healing.

Those feelings were, of course, always there. Over these months I’ve loved being able to welcome them in a new way. And it has felt really good for them to be witnessed, too. 

Thank you, dear reader, for being part of that.

PS— Figuring out how much of our emotions we can and should allow into our professional spaces isn’t a question just for performers. CEOs present to their boards, professors give seminars, doctors lead teams and speak to patients' families — and the list goes on. We can all seek ways to do our jobs with excellence and also make room for our humanity.