For my Jane

Back in my happiest era I used to believe that Maroon 5's best album is Hands All Over. Now that I am a bit older (and sane), it's Songs About Jane.

Songs About Jane is an album of sadness on different shades.

One of my favorite songs off that album, Tangled is a song about how one lie led to another until the singer can't get out of the mess he made.

Hands All Over is this crazy, danceable album filled with songs about love, sex, and basically, putting your hands all over someone. It was my life's soundtrack during my happiest. They were the songs I listened to when I was so happy and in love. I even suggested that he give that album a listen and he did. He even asked me what's my favorite tune. It was Stutter.

Now I can't even bear to listen to any song from that album.

Look at me then! I was a twenty year-old about to finish college in the best university in this country, who entered a job where I was a stellar employee, and was madly in love with the best love I (n)ever had.

Then reality struck.

I was too happy flying over the moon to even notice that I was falling down. That there will come a time that I'll get too tired and just stop. Stop being crazy about my job, stop giving a damn about the world, stop explicitly communicating how much I still want to dance with him to the tune of that album.

Now look at me, wallowing in back episodes of Sherlock on weekdays and vinyl records on weekends. Typical life of a lonely person.

I've been listening to Songs About Jane a lot, but only now have I met "Jane". Jane is that person who we let go but shouldn't, that person who we try to move on from (but apparently couldn't), that person who went away for no reason at all, that person who don't see how much love we have to give, that person who we'd love to take on a Sunday morning drive, that person who we choose to stick to even when things are going crazy. Jane could be a single person, or s/he could be a mix of different people we met in the duration of our short, crazy lives. Like what happened to Maroon 5, Jane is that person who inspired you to pursue what you are doing right now. S/he is who made you that way.

This is the reason why I love Songs About Jane: because it's written like a love-letter, or a break-up letter, or a mixtape made with tears and heartbreak, depending on how you look at it. It's like, "Hey Jane, you tore my heart, spat on the pieces, and threw them out of the window... but I still managed to write an entire album about you." If that's not true sacrifice, I don't know what is.

Now I'm sitting here thinking of my Jane. He who I wrote one too many letters for, he who inspired me to do what I do now, he who I would still choose to be with even when things are going crazy. He who went away with no explanation at all.

Kevin. Kevin is the name of my Jane.