Jann Arden's thoughts

"There are days, that turn into weeks, that turn into months, where all I do is think. I go through a series of events that are so old and unimportant – and I don't know why – trying desperately to understand why I did certain things, why I loved certain people, why I was driven towards them, into them, and eventually out of them. What was love to me? Did I ever really love at all, or was it an illusion of what I dreamed love should be? Are we what we think we are and nothing more? Is reality a figment of one's imagination? Is love the fear of mortality? I do know that when I have fallen in love (and I have been in love in my life); I have felt so weightless and alive and as close to beauty as I will surely ever come. It's damn near killed me, but you do go on. It is the condition we humans treasure most; survival of the heart. Love sickness has killed people, as surely as lightning. (I prefer lighting over dying by love). To be struck by love is a bitter sweetness that will curl your innards and sever your very tongue. It is not often that I am speechless, but heartbreak renders me silent. There, in loss, is where stillness finds me, sitting in a chair, dying by inches. Heartbreak has moulded my very personality; it is what I have become. Being broken has its perks...I don't know what they are yet, but they are, nonetheless, improving me. Heartbreak...I don't mind it though...it somehow is the essence of what I do and what I aspire to do; to live fully and completely, surrounding myself with pain and pleasure and knowing the lines that make me stay within them. The lines that I will no longer cross are the ones I treasure most. I have no desire to go back to old pains, I prefer the company of new ones. As you get older, you can make sense of them all. You can shine a light on them and study the effects they have on your art, your words, your humanity. Pain is an artist’s dearest and truest companion."