The other morning, I found myself listening to a song I hadn’t heard in quite a while. It was “Monsters” by James Blunt.
Back in the Day
The first time I heard that song years ago, it hit me like a freight train. Something about the sadness in the lyrics, the emotion in his voice, and the video itself would bring me to tears every time.
What struck me most was the scene of him sitting beside his father. He wasn’t sobbing. He wasn’t putting on a dramatic performance. His eyes were simply filled with tears, and somehow that made it even more powerful. You could feel the sadness without a word being spoken.
The strange thing is that I never had the kind of relationship with my father that the song seems to portray. In fact, our relationship was complicated – and tumultuous might be a better word. Yet every time I heard that song, it still reached inside me and touched something deep.
The other day the song appeared again, and a thought crossed my mind.
I Wondered How It Would Affect Me Now
Years had passed since I first heard it. Life had happened. More memories had been made. More people had come and gone. More miles had been traveled.
So I listened.
The tears didn’t come the way they once did. The sadness was still there, but it had changed. And that got me thinking about something many of us discover if we live long enough.
Grief changes.
Not all at once. Not on a schedule. Not in a straight line.
But it changes.
As I sat there listening, another thought occurred to me.
We’ve all heard an older person tell a heartbroken teenager, “You’ll get over it.”
Maybe it’s a 16-year-old girl whose first boyfriend just broke up with her. She’s crying in her room, convinced the world has ended. An older parent or grandparent tries to comfort her and says those familiar words.
“You’ll get over it.”
To the teenager, those words can almost sound insulting.
“No, I won’t.”
And in that moment, she believes it with all her heart.
The interesting thing is that neither person is wrong.
The young girl is experiencing genuine heartbreak. The pain is real. It may very well be the deepest emotional wound she has ever felt.
But the older person has something the younger doesn’t have yet.
Lifelong Experience
Not because they’re wiser or stronger, but because they’ve lived long enough to watch grief, disappointment, heartbreak, and loss change shape over the years.
The teenager cannot imagine a day when that pain won’t be sitting in the center of her life.
The older person knows that day will come. Not because the memory disappears. Not because the experience wasn’t important. But because time has a way of softening the sharp edges of our sorrow.
The same thing happens throughout our lives.
A broken heart.
A lost friendship.
The death of a parent.
The loss of a spouse.
In the beginning, each one can feel unbearable.
Yet years later, we often find ourselves remembering those same people and experiences with a smile instead of a tear.
The pain doesn’t vanish.
It transforms.
And Perhaps That’s One of Life’s Greatest Mysteries
When we’re young, we believe our feelings are permanent. When we’re older, we understand that feelings are travelers.
They arrive. They stay for a while. And if we give them enough time, they often leave us with something entirely different than what they brought.
Perhaps that’s why listening to “Monsters” again surprised me.
The song hadn’t changed. The words hadn’t changed. The performance hadn’t changed.
I had.
Years ago, the song would bring me to tears almost every time I heard it. Not because my relationship with my father mirrored the story in the song. It didn’t. Yet something about the emotion in it found a place inside me that responded.
This time was different.
The sadness was still there. But it was no longer standing alone. It had been joined by gratitude, memory, appreciation, and even a little laughter.
I realized I wasn’t thinking about loss anymore. I was thinking about the people and experiences that made the memories worth having in the first place.
The Gifts of Growing Older
Maybe that’s one of the unexpected gifts of growing older.
When we’re young, we live inside our feelings. We believe they’ll last forever. As we age, we begin to see that feelings change, even when the memories don’t.
The people we lose never stop being important to us. But eventually, they stop being defined by the day we lost them and become defined by the years we shared with them.
The tears don’t necessarily disappear. They simply learn how to share space with a smile.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Is there a life-defining moment from your past that you can look at today from a different perspective? What story can you share the summons both tears and a smile at the same time?
