Every week, I challenge myself to a Monday Dare. Click on the link to see the complete list of Monday Dares or to learn more about its origin.
This week: Become a rap educationalist
When I stumble across something especially noteworthy, I like to share it with Harv. It’s my way of saying, “I love you, and I think of you first.” Most of the time, we use the convenience of email to send links or pictures, but if the thing I want to share happens to be a song, I will wait until we are face-to-face. Music has always ruled my life, and I want to build moments in my marriage through hi-hats and modulated bass lines.
Harv and Cal were in the middle of practicing some sort of guitar and vocal gospel duet last night when I broke up their Father Daughter Moment with my latest find, Ace Hood’s “Bugatti.” I’m normally not judgmental about rap lyrics, but it seemed a little suspicious to me that anyone could just “wake up in a new Bugatti.” Could that happen to me too? Am I just hoping for things that will never come?
These seemed like important questions, and I trust Harv to give me the hard truth. He’s not afraid to be honest, even when it ends up hurting our love. Like that one time four years into our marriage when he admitted to me that he had never listened to one entire Tupac song.
Now that I’m thinking back, I’m fairly certain that his admission wasn’t just happenstance. He waited until we were in public. We had just eaten a delicious yet reasonably-priced lunch. I was well-rested after eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. That dude planned this shit out like a boss.
Have you ever walked into a pillar in your living room even though you’ve lived in the same house for almost three years and it was daylight and the impact caused so much pain in the middle part of your forehead and the tip of your nose that your vision went blank for just a second?
It felt just like that. But in my heart.
It’s impossible to know everything about your partner when you marry him after dating for just 18 days, but still, you think the details will just work themselves out because our love is so goddamn strong and ain’t nothing and nobody gonna tear us apart and I don’t need a perfect person, just someone who is perfect for me.
I moved across the country to a town where I knew no one else but my new husband and into a home that I had never even laid eyes on until I become his missus. I missed my friends and my family and the comfort of familiarity.
He told me he liked cats. I took that in stride. He told me he liked the thermostat at 68. I froze my fucking ass off but gazed at him through the icicles forming on my eyelashes with affection. He admitted that he didn’t use coupons, even when they were attached to the item that he was purchasing. I still kissed him before bed that night.
But when he looked through my playlist and repeated name after name in a confused tone, “DJ Khaled? Rick Ross? Three 6 Mafia? E-40? Camp Lo?” SHIT JUST GOT TOO REAL.
I am not a rap pusher, but occasionally, I would share little snippets here and there, just to whet his appetite. I felt like a failure after Harv’s Tupac confession, but still, I just kept right on.
It’s time to step it up a notch. Rap music blasting through our crib, all day eryday. Thug Wife. Thug Life.
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