"This morning, there's a calm I can't explain...

by the time I recognize this moment,

this moment will be gone.

But I will bend the light, pretend that it somehow lingered on..."

Song and Lyrics by: John Mayer "Clarity"

Click the lyrics to watch the video of him performing this acoustic!

I had only known one love in my entire thirty one years of life; my music. But meeting her changed everything. Suddenly she was the love of my life; the focus of all of my attention. Everything changed when she walked into my line of sight. I no longer felt like music was the only constant in my life, the only thing I could ever count on to not let me down. She had quickly taken on that role, and I could see her being that for me, forever.

And so, when it came time for me to extend my record contract to cut a few more albums, I actually had a choice to make; to sign the contract, committing myself to another 3 albums to be put out over the span of five years-five years spent creating the music that I loved. That had never failed me. Five years being so insanely busy writing, recording, promoting, and touring that I wouldn't have time to breathe.

Or have a personal life. Five more years to put off settling down with someone that I was so excited to start a life with that at times I couldn't wait to put a ring on her hand even though we'd only been dating for a few short months. When faced with the decision that day in the Jive recording offices, there hadn't been much of a choice to make at all. I chose her. I thought it was a good idea to call it quits anyway, to walk away when I was at the top of my game. Little did I know that walking away would cost me my happiness; pulling me into the blackest pit of despair. And cause me to lose the love of my life.

So now, almost four years after walking away from it all, I've decided to go back. I have to. If I don't, I'm going to drown in this depression. Looking back through the pages in my journals over the last few years, I've barely kept my head above the surface as it is.

You're probably wondering ‘why now', right? Yeah, me too. All I know is that I woke up in the middle of the night last night with a melody in my head that wouldn't stop playing until I put my fingers on the keys of the baby grand piano in my living room at home. A piano that had been far too neglected since I'd walked away from music; since I'd let her walk away from me. Cause see, even after I'd given up music as my career, she always inspired me to keep creating it. She was my muse. And when she left, so did the melodies.

Up until last night.

Up until last night I'd been living my life in a constant haze. Unable to feel anything. I was completely numb. I'd come to just accept it. Come to accept that the only two things that I'd ever loved in my entire life were gone.

But then my fingers touched the keys and played out the melody that had awakened me from sleep. My fingers on the blacks and whites of the piano had never felt so perfect before. It was so blissfully painful. And yet, it felt like home. Like they'd never been apart from the instrument. And in that instant, as my hands curved against the 88 keys in front of me, the sun just starting to peek on the horizon, the fog lifted. And I had a brief moment of clarity.

For the first time since everything had happened, everything was so painstakingly clear to me. I knew what needed to be done. I needed to go back. I needed to right the wrongs I'd done. When I couldn't pull my hands away from the piano, couldn't stop creating, it was glaringly obvious that I needed music back in my life. But if I was going to go after that, I also needed something else--I needed her.

Sorry, I should probably give her a name.

Madison. Madison Elizabeth Martin (soon to have been Timberlake). We never made it to the altar. We were just a few weeks from the wedding when I'd allowed her to leave. And I say "allowed" because when she told me she was leaving me, I didn't have the fight in me to stop her. At that point, I didn't even care. I'd grown to resent her, blaming her for where I was in life. For making me choose her over my music.

Even though that's not what happened. She'd never once asked me to choose one or the other. If anything, she had encouraged me to sign the contract; to keep going. Saying that my music was as important to her as it was to me, and that she'd stick out the hectic five years with me.

In that moment of clarity when the haze lifted from my head, I also had come to terms with the fact that it was my fault she'd left; that I'd pushed her to that point. I only wonder now what would happen if I tried to make things right, if she'd accept me into her life again. I could only hope that her heart was still as gracious as it had been before.

Only one way to find out.