I don't think I even remember what I was doing four
years ago. If my math is correct (and it rarely ever is)
four years ago was 1998. I was in a dead-end job
and a dead-end relationship. That's pretty much all I
remember.

My life is a weird case study in good fortune. I always
end up getting exactly what I need at exactly the right
time to make things come out "right", even if what I
need isn't what I want, or isn't what seems right at the
time. My career is a perfect example of that. I got my
first computer related job because I was moving off
campus with my friend at UNH and I needed a job to
pay my half of the rent. I went to the UNH financial aid
office and flipped through all the work-study jobs and
litterally grabbed the one that paid the most and called
them. As it turned out the guy was just excited to
have *anybody* responding to his job posting (turned
out the job was 50 minutes away from my apartment,
but at the time I was getting free gasoline from my
parents via a credit card, so it wasn't an issue for me)
that he basically gave me the job right then. I worked
there three days a week during school and full time
during the summers for two years until I graduated,
and then they hired me full time. Not only did it solve
the temporary problem of needing money for rent, it
solved the long-term problem of "what the hell am I
going to do with this *stupid* English degree?"

They say opportunity only knocks once, but it
certainly knocked twice for me in 1999. Some time
near the beginning of the year my former boss (who
had moved to Colorado from NH a few years back)
called and asked if I wanted a job. He said he could
probably get me in where he worked at twice what I
was making at the time, plus moving expenses. I
turned him down flat. At the time I was engaged and I
knew my fiance wouldn't move. I was commited to the
relationship and that was that.

However, the relationship soured almost immediately
after that (due in part to my having the audacity to
suggest that maybe she should at least *think* about
moving to Colorado so I could take advantage of this
opportunity that had fallen in my lap) and six months
later, I was fed up enough with my current job that I
called my old boss back and asked him if there was
still a possibility of getting that job. He told me I was in
luck, that he thought one of the guys on his team was
going to quit soon, and that as soon as he quit he'd
put my resume on his manager's desk. He did just
that, and in January of 2000 I was on my way to
Colorado with a huge pay raise.

That job almost immediately went bad on me, and I
moved on five months later. THAT job ended up not
being a very good situation either, but I stuck it out
this time and learned a very important life lesson:
Nothing is so bad that there isn't something worse out
there somewhere. I managed to find it when I left my
first Colorado job for the next job.

I stuck that out for a year and a half (and the job got
better, then got bad again, then sort of flat-lined into a
day-to-day nothingness that numbed me) and then
the recession hit hard. I was laid off the last day of
November, 2001, and was out of work until the middle
of March 2002.

Being unemployed might seem like a bad thing, and it
certainly wasn't all fun and games while I was out of
work. However, my normal good luck kicked in and
just when I got to the point where I knew I couldn't go
another month without an income, a job came out of
the blue and presented itself to me. I don't remember
applying for it. I don't remember even seeing it listed
anywhere. A recruiter just called me out of the blue
and within 24 hours I was employed again.

My time being unemployed also taught me a very
important lesson, that being that for all the money I
had been making, I was spending all of it and more so
that I was in debt far worse than I had been before
getting the big raises. I knew this was true, of course,
but I had it in my head that somehow I *had* to spend
all that money that I was spending. Being unemployed
taught me just how little money I could live off. I
learned the hard way how to live reletively cheaply
again, and for that I'm eternally greatful.

The new job was a significant paycut from what I had
been making, but still plenty to live on (especially after
learning the hard lesson of how to live on zero
income) and I was told the job was guaranteed for six
months at least, so I hoped that by September things
would have picked up again and jobs would be
available.

Well, here it is September, and things haven't picked
up much if at all. Yet, strangely, I have a new job.
Stranger still, the pay put me right back to where I was
a year ago at this time. I get a daily email from job
boards such as Monster and Dice, but for the most
part I had been ignoring them while working my last
job. However, one day last month I had opened the
email from Dice and found this job advertised. I sent
my resume off and almost immediately got a call from
the in-house recruiter saying they wanted to interview
me. I went for the interview, got called back for a
second interview, and got the job all within a few
weeks. It happened for me the same way it always
seems to happen for me--out of the blue, randomly,
and without any real effort on my part.

Which brings me to the point of this long-winded post.
About two months before I got laid off last year, I also
got dumped by my then-girlfriend. In one of life's odd
coincidences (which seem to be just par for the
course for me) you also ended your long-term
relationship in that very same week. Almost as soon
as it happened, I knew it fit the pattern perfectly.
Because like I said, I don't always get what I want, but
I seem to always get what's best for me. In this case,
I was lucky enough that what I wanted more than
anything was exactly what was best for me. I didn't
know how or when it was going to happen, but I knew
we were going to end up together. It just fit the pattern
too well *not* to happen. And I can honestly say I'm
happier now that I've been in years. *hug*

And I'll kick the ass of anybody who calls me a softy
for posting this.

-- Dave