Have you ever gotten the lyrics to a song you love wrong? Like, belting-them-out-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-while-scrubbing-pots-and-pans-because-this-song-is-just-SO-good wrong?
Of course you have, we all have right?
Well that was me on Saturday night. I was delivering my rendition of “Let it Go” (yep, the Frozen version) while flitting around the kitchen putting dishes away — I could hear the muffled sounds of the movie coming from the family room (which Wyatt now refers to as “fammy room” by they way).
Only I was singing letting go.
Nick rounds the corner from the next room and questions, “I thought it was let it go…”
I tell him– pretty sure of myself– that it is in all but the last refrain where it switches to letting go. You know, to show the growth that the she has experienced throughout the course of the song. She’s gone from telling herself to let it go to actually letting go.
Yeah well, we all know I’m just dead wrong. Haha!
But it got me thinking about these phrases. The verbiage: let it go can be used both in the present and the past — allowing for a little ambiguity here. Is she saying? “I need to let it go.” Or is it? “I have obviously already let it go.”
And using the present progressive letting go is all kinds of trouble because way back when, I was taught that using present progressive in writing is passive — and you should always, always use a more assertive type of language.
But is it? I mean, is it really passive? We can let go of grudges. Feeling like an outcast. Arguments. Failures. Even what ifs. But I’m not certain we can ever really relinquish some other things in our lives: the need to be in control, the need to be perfect, the need to be right, the need to be acknowledged.
I mean we can try. But is there ever really that moment of arrival when it comes to these things? Really? I personally think we are always more of works in progress.
Present progressive indicates continuing action. Something going on now, but can also suggest something in the future.
And all I can say is there is a whole ‘lotta present progressive going on over here! :)
P.S. I hope you enjoyed the video of all of our works in progress from this past month. I am definitely loving documenting our everyday lives more purposefully through video.
P.P.S. Annnd I totally think the lyrics in the last refrain of ‘Let it Go’ should have been letting go… It would have given it that much more of a punch, right?!