things finally settled

The past a few weeks have been like a nightmare for me. Today, everything finally settled down. I can finally find the energy to tell my story now, or more like continue the story.

I got a pink slip a few weeks ago. was not surprised at all about it but was surprised that superviser told me beforehand that there would be a new position posted for me to apply. Geez, this new position caused more pain and stress than lay-off itself.

The position was created to match two people. So the two of us will have to compete for this job that neither of us wanted. However in this economy beggars do not get to pick. So the two of us applied for this job. We went through very formal interview processes since HR has been watching this particular case from start to avoid issues. The two of us interviewed back-to-back. each gave a presentation and answered teh same standardized questions that a panel of 5 prepared a few minutes before the interview. I took a risk to present my ideas about new opportunity instead of showing what I did before, did a great job, even better than the one I gave at board meeting.
From what I heard now, most people in the panel were quite clear who was better. Even my opponent can't deny my great job there, but tried to say that I got help from others. Then it turned out that they do want to see a behavior of collecting other people's inputs to form a good final product. I got the job offer. many people told me not to take it since I have been very unhappy for a full year by now. then others started questioning my unhappiness may just be my own unjustified bias against sr managers since obviously they did offer me the job not the other person.
Either way, I decided to take it. If it turned out to be a bad decision again, so be it.
The funny part is that when I do not have any offer, there seems to be no opportunity whatsoever. Once I have this offer, interviews are coming from every direction. God, please tell me what happened here? I may regret that I took this offer in a few days. who knows.