that’s right, i’ve been in hawaii a little over five years, or:

5 years, 21 days
1847 days
44,328 hours
2,659,680 minutes
159,580,800 seconds

(yes, i’m a geek) this is of course assuming that my memory is correct in my arrival date of october 5, 2002. it’s been a long and interesting five years, full of changes, surprises, and revelations. a brief recap….

as i’ve said on more than one occasion, when i arrived in honolulu, it was with the intention and understanding that i had come for a temporary visit. after a year, or so, in the company of my best friend in the beautiful island state, spending some time in therapy “getting happy,” i would return to the mainland to pursue my life. as the first year approached its conclusion, i had just found a shrink, was still home sick, but wasn’t ready to leave as i hadn’t yet achieved my goal. i would tell people, “i’ll probably go next year.”

over the next two years, i began to find my stride, my own set of friends, went through a couple of jobs, made great strides in therapy (even tried medication), but still wasn’t ready to leave. “i’ll probably go sometime in the next year.”

therapy did great things for me, so much so that there’s not much about the old me that still remains. of course, this is exactly what i wanted, however the change did not come without casualties; i’ve lost (drove away?) two of my closest and oldest friends. the first is my roommate and best friend since high school. during my most vulnerable years, he helped me stay on a relatively even keel and cope with a life that i despised. as my therapy progressed, my personality shifted and as a consequence i started to drift away from that friendship. it’s something i will always lament, however one of the most important things i’ve learned is not to regret change because it’s inevitable. we still talk and are still friends, i think, and still live together, however the closeness we once shared is gone, perhaps forever.

the loss of that friendship was the first sign, in my opinion, that i was on a clear course away from the person i once was, a person that i hated. while there were still issues that remained largely unresolved, after over two years of therapy, my doctor and i agreed that i had come as far as therapy could take me. it was a huge victory for me and while i cannot remember the exact day, i can look back and say it was a huge turning point and perhaps one of the happiest days of my life. it had changed me for the better and allowed me to get over a relationship that had broken me. i’m every day thankful for that, even though i will think of the girl from time to time and miss her.

i still had another close, good friend, which helped while the first friendship started to turn south. it made it all less distressing. then of course, that second friendship hit the wall, frustratingly, while she was in honolulu visiting. without getting into the details, from where i stood, she did something she shouldn’t have, something she should have known better than to do. what i think made the whole thing irreparable was the fact that she felt bad about doing it… just not quite bad enough to stop. as a result of all that, we now barely talk at all. to be honest, i can’t say as i have much feeling about it at all at this point. does that make me an ass? maybe.

a few months before my therapy came to an end, i began a new path that would become a life passion. i joined the progressive democrats of hawaii, a liberal political organization that has provided me with a vehicle to become a mover and shaker, as it were, in hawaii politics. the success of that organization has become one of the significant driving forces in my professional life, though my activity in politics has expanded far beyond the limits of pdh. with the conclusion of my therapy and the discovery of a life long passion, i began to feel my life finally come together and i less and less thought about my eventual return to the mainland; hawaii started to feel like home to me, though i hadn’t yet committed to staying, i simply didn’t think about when i would leave. “at some point, but who knows when,” i started to tell people.

at the end of may 2006, i attended my first democratic state convention. i had only been involved in the political scene here for roughly five months, but things were already going so well, i was not only a delegate to the convention, but also the time keeper, sitting on the dais, helping keeping the speakers on track. there are still people who recognize me for that role. it was a great experience and i look forward to expanding on it at the 2008 convention as a delegate and the chair for registration and credentials.

i also worked on the reelection campaign for us senator daniel akaka. i attribute my success to this point, at least in part, to my participation in that campaign and the people i met, the connections i made, and the things i learned along the way. the senator won his reelection bid with moderate competition and i’m glad to say i had some part in that, however small.

i still have a lot to learn and a long way to go to get where i want to be, but i’m doing it and enjoying it in the meantime. i have no doubt that i will always be a political activist in some capacity.

now, looking just over my shoulder at my receding five-year anniversary the reality of my life begins to take shape. while the past five years have not transpired at all like i envisioned they would, i am content with my life and am glad to be where i am….