april 29, 2010. it was the last day of the 2010 legislative session and the last day i worked to collect a paycheck for over a year. in fact, it would be 565 days, or one year, six months, and 17 days until i was once again a fully employed person, but we’ll come back to that in a bit….

like so many others, i’m sure, when i graduated college, i never imagined that i’d someday be a statistic collecting unemployment benefits, but there i was 565 days without a job, without a retirement plan or legitimate health insurance. while it has, at times, been frustrating, i can’t say i minded it all that much. i was able to really commit to the thing i’m most passionate about: politics. i can’t say i spent 40 hours every week of that 565 days doing political stuff, but i spent a lot of the vast majority of time doing just that and i loved it.

i can’t say i really believe in fate, destiny, g-d, or any of that stuff, but looking back over the last couple of years, i have to admit the trajectory i’ve been on since leaving my job at monarch insurance has been, for lack of a better term, fateful. even the sale of asb-bishop insurance agency to monarch insurance now seems itself somewhat fateful. i left that job to take one with the democratic party of hawaii and i’ve been doing politics more or less full-time since then, though not getting paid for a lot of it.

looking back even further, i can draw a line of events that appear to have led me, unavoidably, to this moment.

i left ohio to get as far away as seemingly possible from a girl who was destroying my soul (too dramatic?) and set my sights on the sunny land of aloha. at the time, it never occurred to me that i’d make a life for myself here, but rather that i’d “get my shit together,” then return to some mainland location to “start my life.” instead, i’ve been here for nine years at the beginning of this past october. i’ve built a life for myself. i’m happy after a few years of therapy and have even found a career i love and am passionate about. had i never left ohio, or come to the islands, i’m not sure any of those things would have happened.

the line of apparent fate continues from one job, from one string of events, to the next, bringing me to where i am now. it’s hard to imagine how my life would look if any one of those circumstances had had an even slightly different outcome.

it’s still true that i have trouble with the idea of fate as a real force in the universe, however it’s a bit harder for me to deny the existence of… something laying out the path for me. i’ve made all the decisions and, at least for the last couple of years, i’ve set a fairly clear course for myself. despite that, there nonetheless remain hints of that same something; that i was able to collect the maximum allowable unemployment benefit for so long; that remarkably, when i needed it the most, extra money would “turn up;” that i was never in a position in which i was forced to take a job i didn’t want. all these things have led me to where i am now.

on november 14, i officially started a new job as the political affairs aide at united public workers. it a position and opportunity that i’ve been angling and working for since as far back as may of this year and i’ve been volunteering for them, more or less full-time, in this capacity the beginning of september with the hope that the paid position would eventually come through. it finally did and i couldn’t be happier about it. it’s the job i’ve been looking for since first leaving the democratic party of hawaii more than two years ago. it is a great learning opportunity that will eventually provide me with all the skills i need to be a professional political operative.

so, do i believe in fate or g-d now? i still have to say no, but there’s no denying the unbelievably good fortune i’ve experienced over the last couple of years that have ultimately led me to this current job. in addition to the feeling of well-being i get when i used to do my thrice daily prayers, this outcome and the long line of events that led me here is yet further evidence that there is indeed “something greater” that exists in the universe and its something i’ll be forced to ponder in the coming months.