It's 2:17am, and I'm...

...still up. No surprise for a Friday night, really.


I had an epiphany today, as painful as it may be, after having yet another conversation intended to clarify my role in the BC-LTRC. See, for the past four months I've been holding the weight of the Committee on my shoulders, and acting as the backbone for the organization, in a sense. It's partly my fault; when tasks weren't being completed and initiative not taken, I stepped in to save the day. It was fine until I began to feel the burden in very real ways. And then I started to realize the detrimental situation we were in. As long as I, or any other one person, was carrying the load, there was no reason or need for the others to step up and take charge. The result was the direct opposite of what was intended -- rather than supporting and building the committee, I was participating in its decline.

So I raised my concerns. Unfortunately, it became very real when I relayed the thought of leaving my post far earlier than the year I committed to. Two and a half meetings later, there's no full resolution to be had. I have, however, let them know that I'll be scaling back and focusing specifically on the support and capacity-building roles I was brought in to fill.

I know that when I step back, one other individual fills in. Like me, she has the drive and the tendency to meet the need, to see a gap and to fill it. I wish she wouldn't. Either of our work in that aspect actually allows the committee itself to become inactive, to deteriorate into an ineffective, unproductive body of names on a sheet of paper.

However, as I drove home I realized one thing -- I can't control that. My desire is to empower the volunteers who have willingly joined this committee in order to continue the work long after I, or any other person, have left. But if another person isn't willing to engage in that same mission, that same purpose, then there is nothing I can do.

And that's okay, I suppose. I can do what I do to improve the committee. And the rest? I don't know. Does it satisfy me? Not at all, but it is what it is.

Okay, now I need to go to bed. 2:27. Those ten minutes left me irrevocably sleepy.