Experience makes fewer things surprising without making them painless.

You stop being blindsided and you do not stop being hurt. Knowing that people leave, that things fail, that bodies break down: none of this dulls the experience when it arrives. Experience buys preparation, not immunity, and expecting otherwise adds a layer of self-criticism to grief.

If something hard has landed and you feel foolish for being knocked down by a thing you knew was coming, let that go. Knowing about pain in advance has never once been the same as being protected from it.