The Wrong Words

Today I watched my daughter sing the words to a song she didn't know. She danced around the room and mumbled things that sounded like words combined with an occasional verse from a nursery rhyme that seemed to fit the groove of the song. Everything that came out of her mouth was wrong, but the words kept rolling and she kept grooving.

It reminded me of one of the first times I was in the car with my husband. We had just started dating. He put on one of his favorite rap artists and was starting to bounce to the beat. He commented on how he loved this music and listened to it all of the time. I watched as he started to rap along with Jay-Z and couldn't help but notice that he kept getting the lyrics wrong. He didn't stop, he didn't look over with embarrassment. He just kept bouncing to the beat and butchering the rap.

"You know you are saying the wrong words, right?" I asked just in case he forgot that I was in the car. "Maybe a few" he said. "But I know most of them." I was shocked. I am too embarrassed to sing aloud to myself in case I missed a word or sang off key. I am too controlling and too uptight to risk the chance of being perceived as not knowing everything. I would rather say nothing than risk saying the wrong thing. But here is this man who is supposed to be trying to impress me pointing his finger gangsta style while dancing in his seat and rapping the wrong words.

I think that was one of those moments where on the surface I may have appeared turned off or irritated by what he was doing. But deep down I was really falling in love. I admired him for not caring. I admired him for knowing that regardless of how he rapped he was a good man with a lot to offer. I admired his strength and confidence and creativity. I admired him for saying what he wanted to say without sending it through a filter to avoid making a mistake. I knew there was a lot that I could learn from him.

As I watched my daughter today, I was so happy that she inherited the gift of singing the wrong words from her father. I hope she will carry the gift through life and never worry about what she doesn't know or what people think about her. Some people would say it's inevitable to at some point be overwhelmed by insecurities and chose to say nothing instead of saying the wrong thing. But those people haven't met my husband.