What Is Your Favorite Song?

I've always attached songs to seasons of my life.

I associate meeting someone new and the ensuing sweet moments with a song or two. Those songs become the soundtrack of that season.

Some of them eventually get buried under several layers of dust and cobwebs because they are never revisited. Perhaps it is the pain of the breakup or the bitterness of the experience that soured those songs forever.

Has this happened to you?

At other times, a song becomes forever intertwined with a moment like this:

It is raining outside — droplets cascading down the floor-to-ceiling windows, an ethereal mist bathing the city. Indoors, Paradise by Sade plays softly.

You know what I like whenever the weather is like this. You put the kettle on without me asking.

I come up behind you, wrap my arms around you and breathe you in.

You know what I smell?

My man.

Music used to be a balm.

Following recent life events, I am suffering from severe anxiety.

Before you think this can be cured with breathwork and meditation, I want to tell you that those two don't work when the amygdala has hijacked your brain and ridden off into the sunset.

It is a fight-or-flight response times 10.

Your sympathetic nervous system is firing on all cylinders in response to perceived danger and is completely ignoring your rational mind telling it that it's okay.

Enough of the medical lesson. I am taking meds that dull the anxiety so I can get through the day.

However, my emotional skin has been stripped bare to the bones.

Music now gives me terrible anxiety because it goes straight to the emotional part of my brain — the place where nostalgia and loss live.

I can't listen to any of my favorite songs without crying and feeling very anxious.

It isn't just music. I have become sensitive to places I previously enjoyed visiting, certain smells, and little things that most people won't think twice about. For instance, my daughter bought some posters of the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice to decorate her dorm room. I am a huge fan of both the book and the main characters (#Mr. Darcy forever!); however, the emotions they triggered were so intense that I couldn't bear looking at them.

Isn't it strange that nostalgia is not just stored in songs but is stored everywhere!

The good thing is I can enjoy new songs without any personal history.

For instance, yesterday, I was browsing through TJMaxx when a catchy song came on. I tried looking it up, but no go.

In the next aisle, an associate was humming along — she seemed to know every word of the song! So I approached her and asked her its name, which she enthusiastically shared.

Now I am enjoying listening to it! (Link below).

What is your favorite song, ever? Do share in the comments!