You got what it takes

About a week ago, I spent some time on YouTube taking a trip down memory lane, this time going very far back, listening to music from long ago.  I’m not sure how I arrived where I did but found myself listening to music of the Dave Clark Five, one of the British invasion bands of the 1960’s.  I had almost forgotten about them until my memory lane trip.

After listening to several of their songs, I eventually settled on one that was my favorite and still is this day, “You Got What It Takes”.   I have a distant memory of the first time I listened to this song and sort of think it may have been when watching a regular Sunday evening episode of The Ed Sullivan Show; I’m not sure.  

The lyrics of this song tells of a person lacking in many areas that you’d think would make them less than desirable for a relationship but, somehow and nonetheless, still has what it takes for the singer, and sets his soul on fire.

Yesterday, upon awakening and after one of several planned trips to the bathroom, I glanced at myself in the mirror when washing my hands.  I had probably been awake less than five minutes.  

Looking at my mirror image, I saw the “very best” my gracefully aging middle-age man face had to offer during these first five minutes of my new day, and it wasn’t pretty.  

My saving grace was that I knew once my face woke up, I had my morning cup of coffee, the fog in my mind slowly lifted and my aging middle-age man body revved up and became action-oiled for a new day of motion commotion, I’d be fine.  Honestly, however, my immediate mirror image was very hard on my eyes.

It was then that I thought about this song, again, and in a moment of middle-age man self-love and affirmation, sang to myself in my mind’s eye, “you got what it takes.”

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum