Sing Like Nobody’s Listening

When I’m about thirteen years old, my mother takes me to a concert for one of my favorite singers. I love singing but am usually discouraged from doing it, but I’m so excited to be here that I let myself sing along to whatever is being sung, confident that no one can really hear me over the noise of the concert.

Halfway through, I catch my mother giving me a weird look and clearly trying not to laugh. I stop singing.

Me: “What?”

Mother: “Nothing. It’s nothing. Just— I love you.”

She told me later that evening that the singer had forgotten some of the words to her song, but I had been having too much of a good time to notice, and the people around us were watching me continue to sing without a care in the world, even when the singer fumbled!