Nina Nesbit and “When You Lose Someone”
The authenticity and simplicity of these lyrics and the video caught me today. Like with many songs on this blog, the words and emotion feel like I’m communicating directly with a client. They echo what I’ve heard clients express to me over the years, and especially these past years. I feel a lump welling in my throat as I think about the love and the stories I have heard while processing grief these past years. The song starts, “I thought I’d only be a moment…but it’s like a landslide of emotion…everyday” and every lyric after details the outpouring of emotion and ups and downs of living without someone who was important to you.
Another lyric that caught me is that the feeling is, “not something that just fades overnight it’s something that stays for the rest of your life.” Many clients have expressed that this is a bittersweet way of keeping their love for that person. The process she describes indicates that she’s never fully healed back to the way she was before. This makes me think of a line the 13th century Persian poet Rumi that is often quoted by grief and trauma therapists: “The wound is where the light enters you.” There is a lot of meaning to be gleaned from that line. In therapy it generally means that we support a journey through grief and trauma that connects us to a deeper experience of humanity. With our hearts this raw and bare from pain we let in more insight, we let in more love.
If you need more support as you process grief and trauma here are a few more resources.
For more reflection on the Rumi quote:
https://medium.com/invisible-illness/the-wound-is-where-the-light-enters-you-c5328744417e
For a comprehensive network of resources on grief:
For a collection of helpful articles on grief, especially different types of grief:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm
For a link to a list of 64 things about grief that my clients have found helpful:
https://whatsyourgrief.com/64-things-about-grief/
If you enjoyed the artist, Nina Nesbit, she will be performing at the Filmore in Silver Spring in May 2022:
https://www.ninanesbittmusic.com/tour/
When you Lose Someone
By Nina Nesbitt
Full Lyrics:
I thought it’d only be a moment
Like a night of summer rain
But it’s like a landslide of emotion
Everyday
I’ve been trying to recover
I put you to the back of my brain
Now I’m just to remember you
In the best way
Refrain:
I go from feeling numb to feeling everything at once
And don’t know if I
Wanna cry, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn
Is how to lose someone
First, you don’t have the words
It’s the kinda flame you don’t see ’til it burns
Then it hurts ’til it eats you alive
Changes you forever in the blink of an eye
And it’s not something that just fades overnight
It’s something that stays for the rest of your life
When you lose somebody you love
When you lose somebody you love
It comes and goes like it’s a season
But the clouds are always grey
And late at night when I’m alone with my thoughts
It feels like a Ferrari racing (on and on)
Refrain repeats
