When Time Gets Heavy

“Time” wasn’t some planned thing, like I sat down with a theme and said, Okay, today I’m gonna write about mortality and regret like it’s a therapy session with a rhyme scheme. Nah. It came out of this quiet, uncomfortable inventory of my own life; the kind you do at 2 a.m. when you are staring at the ceiling and remembering every person you should have called, every moment you thought you had forever, every version of yourself you left behind.

I, Thorne Empire, wrote it because I realized I had messed up in ways I couldn’t undo. I didn’t spend enough time with certain people; people I loved deeply, people who aren’t here anymore. And that hits different. You can tell yourself there will be another day, another visit, another long conversation over coffee. Then suddenly there isn’t. The door closes quietly, and you’re left holding memories you didn’t even know were the last ones.

And I won’t sugarcoat it; I took friendships for granted. I assumed the people who mattered would always be around, like these endlessly durable constants orbiting my life. But relationships aren’t built for autopilot. They are like little potted flowers: ignore them long enough, let a few days go by without water, and they wither before you even notice. That realization stung more than I want to admit, but it also cracked something open. It made the song honest.

But the thing is, “Time” isn’t just about me. I wrote it with my own mistakes in the foreground, sure; but the background is full of everyone else’s stories I have watched up close. The couples who stay married because the paperwork feels heavier than the unhappiness. The parents who blink and their kids are suddenly teenagers with their own secrets and schedules. The people who take soul crushing jobs because the bills demand it, not realizing that every exhausted morning takes a little more out of them. I have seen wealthy people and broke people carry the same regrets; only difference is the wealthy ones get nicer couches to sit on while they wonder where their joy drifted off to.

“Time” is me acknowledging all of it: the slipping, the fading, the quiet erosion we pretend isn’t happening.

But don’t get it twisted; this song isn’t only a eulogy for mistakes. It’s also a toast to all the sweetness I did get to keep; the moments with family and friends that felt tiny at the time but ended up carrying whole seasons of my life. The goofy, messy late night laughs that still echo in my head. The road trips with the windows down, my favorite people packed in the car, nobody caring where we were headed. Those little slices of simplicity I didn’t realize were rare until they were gone. I wanted the song to hold grief and gratitude at the same time, because that’s how life actually feels; bittersweet, like a drink that burns going down but somehow warms you anyway.

And the truth is, time never had to sneak in; it was always there, sitting in the corner, watching everything unfold. It’s just that in certain chapters of life, it feels gentler, almost patient. But as the years stack up; good moments, bad choices, all of it, time starts to sharpen. What once felt soft becomes a little more brutal. You wake up one day and realize the fire you carried in your twenties has settled into this quiet, stubborn ember. Your dreams are still hanging around, but they lean a bit to one side now, like a chair you keep promising you will fix. And in the mirror, you start to see the slow accumulation of goodbyes etched into the lines on your face. Time doesn’t hide or steal; it just gets heavier with age, and it makes sure you feel every ounce of what you have lived.

Writing “Time” meant admitting how fast everything moves, even when you are standing still. Kids grow up, parents age, most romances lose their spark, and those chances you swore you would take just… dry out. I thought I had endless “somedays.” Turns out they expire.

So this song became my way of saying: Here’s to the things I lost, the things I loved, the things I didn’t appreciate until they were memories. Here’s to the years that shaped me and shook me. Here’s to finally paying attention.