Earworms of the Musical and Overactive Brain Varieties

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Earworm: A song that sticks in your mind, and will not leave no matter how much you try. - From urbandictionary.com

There are two serious earworms in my head right now. The first is the entire soundtrack to the musical Frog and Toad which we bought from iTunes after seeing the production at my school. The songs are wonderful and my daughter loves them, so we've heard them A LOT! It seems the only way the song about eating cookies moves on is when it is replaced by the one about being almost Christmas. Having just typed those two phrases, they are competing for my brain so I've had to fire up some music on my computer for brain redirection.

The second earworm is an issue I'm having with some people in my life. The details are unimportant for this post, but it's been very frustrating, and actually makes my heart beat hard enough it seems to pound in my ears whenever I think of it. While it does not totally encompass my mind, it seems to pop up several times an hour and I'm pretty tired of it.  All I can think about is an upcoming meeting, going through various scenarios and what my actions could or should be. I hope that the decisions I have made, and will make, will be the right ones. This situation has really made me question myself professionally and personally about the type of person I am. 

I have some high expectations about myself, who I think I am, and how to take actions that help me be who I want to be. Like everyone, I have plenty of failures I dwell on and successes I worry I over-exaggerate to show myself in the best light possible. Self doubt is a tough emotion to deal with and it's been creeping into my mind a little deeper than I wish it would lately. 

But tonight, I was reminded of a success I have forgotten about. A classmate from college posted about me on an alumni Facebook page, on a thread related to people they had lost contact with from college. I remember her, and how we were always friends, even if we didn't hang out much. Here is what she posted.

"#ILoveYouMan Max, you are still my hero for making sure I was ok that night our freshman year. #knightinshiningarmor"

To be honest, I don't remember the specific incident she is referring to. I have a vague image in my memory of helping her with something, but my freshman year of college was actually twenty years ago and I don't know what it was. I have some ideas of what it could be and I'm sure if I asked she would tell me. But part of me wants to leave it a mystery. It doesn't really matter if I know or not. What matters is it made my day, that someone remembers a kind or even "heroic" action from twenty years ago. 

I like to think there are lots of heroic moments in my past, where because I was there, someone's world, or at least moment, was better. It gives me the strength to move forward and trust in myself. If I took the right actions, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, that still matter to someone twenty years later, I can trust myself to do what is right in this situation. That is the slice of my life I needed today.

This is not me :)

By the way, if you have an earworm (the musical variety) stuck in your head, the website unhearit.com might be able to help. The below is cut-and-pasted from the website:

We created this site for those of you that have a song stuck in your head and you can't get it out no matter what you do. Using the latest in reverse-auditory-melodic-unstickification technology, we've been able to allow our users to “unhear” songs by hearing equally catchy songs. So really all we're doing is making you forget your old song by replacing it with another one... sorry.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cayusa/3393491581/">Cayusa</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">cc</a>