Following Rick Springfield’s Guide to Happiness

Way back in a long-ago day, when ATMs were a startling new technology and a ground-breaking convenience we’d never before imagined, I helped Rick Springfield’s friend find one.

At the time, I had only a vague idea of who Rick Springfield was, when his pal tapped me on the shoulder while riding on D.C.’s Metro and asked, “Do you live here? Do you know what stop might have an ATM nearby?”

I did, however, have a certainty about where ATMs were located, and I told him so. His way of thanking me was to give me back-stage tickets to “a play I’m in.” Turns out he was playing the cop at the National Theater in D.C. in a touring production of “Grease” in which Rick Springfield was starring. Or maybe Rick Springfield was just performing and not starring. The memory is somewhat vague. Regardless of his role, I suspect he was part of said production to give it a bump in ticket sales, regardless of his upward or downward stardom spiral–the direction of which at the time I do not recall.

I took my youngest-by-13-years sister to the play, and we watched in awe as Rick Springfield barely gave a bow before he sprang back onto stage and sang all his hits gone by. Women my age and older screamed and sang along; their daughters, as did my sister, cringed. Afterward, we did indeed go backstage with my ATM pal/play co-star to meet Mr. Springfield–who couldn’t have been nicer and more chatty–and had one of the more fun nights of my life at that point. To say that my sister was beyond thrilled….

Of late, I have been less than thrilled with my life in paradise. I work seven days a week quite by accident and now feel cornered by the accident, my once good but now fair-weather friends have come and completely gone on the whims of the tides and afternoon rain showers, and my thoughts have wandered into the gray zone: Is calling it quits, finally, and heading back to D.C. and all its eccentric activity and energetic layers of life a cure for the malaise that has settled in?

Why, in the depths of weeks of angst, a random and seemingly unimportant memory would surface, is beyond my understanding. But for some reason, this latest crisis of life sparked the Rick Springfield memory. As in, what would Rick do right now–or, more appropriately, do back then–as laughable as that may seem.

Maybe, I realized, it’s not an either-or decision. Maybe, I thought, smiling at the memory of Rick’s curly-topped head as he belted out a hit that had nothing to do with “Grease” but that the women in the audience loved as their daughters hid their eyes, it’s about doing what you need to do for the time being, and always planning for, always knowing that you can do whatever else you want to do, when you want.

So, I star behind multiple bars, not so much because I am a great bartender, but because I am not a Keys girl. I miss seeing my D.C. friends and my kids, not so much because I can’t go see them, but because I adhere to a work-ethic that is the antithesis of a Keys girl and can never find even a few days to take off.

I have become curiously miserable in a life in paradise that is lauded as the dream of a lifetime by The Weather Channel’s “Jim Cantore” Stories” in a repeatedly shown series. Because I sadly take my life here so very seriously, even when no one else does within the boundaries of these beautiful coral rocks.

“What makes you happy?” asked my best-sister-like friend when I called her for answers, who surely must struggle with that question every day of every week since her husband died a little more than a year ago at such a young age.

Simple question. Complicated answer.

Until and unless you come up with an answer like Rick Springfield did back in the day: You work the work that is offered at the time, and you hopefully still work your magic. You enjoy the best parts of where you land as you can, and you never forget the people and places that made you smile the most–when you were at the top, and now, when you are simply here.

It doesn’t take much to acknowledge the tap on a shoulder from a stranger. Stranger moments have led to more defining moments. But this particular shoulder tap, remembered from a long-ago time, reminded me to accept and live the good I have here and to answer the absolute need I have to re-connect there.

Guess I just wanna be “Jessie’s Girl.” Yeah, that’ll work.