How I stole a karaoke song
“You’re too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off you
You'd be like heaven to touch - I wanna hold you so much
At long last love has arrived - I thank God I’m alive
You’re too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off you”
- Can’t take my eyes off you, Frankie Valli
The first time I heard this song was at karaoke with my then head of product, Gavin because this is his karaoke song. It is a special song. That night is one of my best memories in my life - and the day after, one of the worst hangovers.
One can argue that this is a beginning of a love letter but, it really isn’t. At least, it is not the kind of love the present me feels. My love has evolved since the first time in 2018 heard this song and, how I fell in love with an idea of a man who was a mentor to me. A long time ago, I read this essay about how two people need a third thing to connect on. Love is more than passion makes it out to be. Love is connection. In a way, I connected with that man 12 years older than me. We shared a vision and the same passion to achieve greatness at work. Even today I have the remnants of that connection.
Gavin is many things - passionate, strong, driven, ambitious, generous, kind and on good days - caring. Now, I do not mean to imply he does not care about people - it’s rather than he is scared of vulnerability. So was I when I met him. It’s funny that his karoake song is about being vulnerable when he finds it so hard to be. There is a quote:
“It’s hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch. I know that if I’m hit where I am earnest, I will never recover.”
- Sunsets, Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green
Sometimes, I feel that Gav is earnest but very few people ever glimpse that earnestness. What he is, is an open book. He does not lie because he does not have memory for it. In all my life, I had never met a person who point blank told me that I do not lie because I am not smart enough to remember my own lies. There is something wonderful about that.
Now, you might think there are many people like Gav but there are not. He is one of a kind. He has vision to drive people - to a goal and off the rocker depending on the day. Can someone be both dependable and unreliable? Yes. I did not know that before I met Gav. When you are friends with him, you know you can depend on him for anything you might need but he make you work for it before becoming dependable.
I was impressionable and young when I met Gav and he made an impression. Some people you respect, you show the best side of yourself to them - others you are willing to let them see the frailties because they won’t eat you alive. Gavin is one of the latter.
A thing about Gav is his love for tequila and, how I found the same thing for myself. It is odd to be in your 30s or 40s and love tequila but it remains my choice of celebratory drink. If something good is happening, you must have tequila shots. You know how you are not you but a bunch of people combined. A lot of what I learned about how to be a person (and drunk), is from Gav. On my 28th birthday, he introduced to us Don Julio and shots of it - what a memorable night it was for everyone but me. I have pictures luckily. Some more blurry than others.
There are many reasons to miss someone - Gavin I miss because he had managed to give me purpose. The time I spent working alongside with him was the most purposeful in my life. I’ve met other people who might be similar to him but no one like him. We are all unique in our own ways. It is a pleasure to call him my friend.
One might ask why I am writing this - I write because I want to eternalise my love in some way. We love so many people but we forget that. We are a product of so many experiences - ones we remember and ones we forget. I write to remind myself how lucky I am to have had that time and how - there is light again and again in our lives. There is love recurring in our lives - being brought in and out. If we can be vulnerable, we can love so much. We obsess over romantic love but there is so much else.
To love is to be human, it is to know that it will fail at times, it will be unkind but you need to keep loving no matter what. Love is the best thing humans do.