I Have a Dilemma

So, dear reader, I wanted to share some of my recent thoughts with you and get your input. The reality is that I’ve been struggling with this for quite some time now, and it’s reached a point where it’s completely maddening to me. So instead of me continuing to wrestle with this alone, I’m going to share my innermost thoughts with you. If blogs could go through a mid-life crisis, this would be it.

Perhaps it would be helpful for me to share what I’m doing in GS now. Last year, my co-leader and I made the decision to “reboot” my troop with my co-leader taking over as the primary leader, and I would serve in a secondary role. Frankly, I’m burned out when it comes to troop business and badge programming. My youngest daughter is a 10th grader, so assuming she continues, I’ve still got two more years to go. I’m in my 15th year as a GS volunteer. I realize compared to a lot of folks, that’s young when it comes to GS years, but I feel like I’ve been through a lifetime in my GS career that I won’t rehash here.

As a part of this reboot, we changed service units (SU) due to a move in troop location. I agreed to serve as Service Unit Manager of my new SU, and it’s been a challenge. This SU hasn’t had a SUM in an unknown number of years and has merged twice with other SUs since 2020 due to lack of leadership and plummeting membership numbers. Troops in this SU tend to stick to themselves much like what I described in my blog post from 2018. I knew this situation would be a rebuilding project going into it, but it’s been more of a challenge than I anticipated for a variety of reasons. And honestly, I miss my old SU. I had been with the SU team for 10 years and considered many of those leaders my friends. We had a good thing going there for a while until things changed recently. But as they say, you can’t go home again.

When it comes to Trailblazers, we’re in Year 2 of partnering with the council to serve volunteer organized and led outdoor related event programming to Cadettes through Ambassadors. It hasn’t been without a few hiccups, but overall, I feel like it’s gaining some momentum in the council. Fingers crossed we can keep it going.

I serve as a SU delegate in my new SU, and recently, I submitted a proposal to our council’s board of directors on how to engage our delegate body. We’ve never had an active delegate base as long as I’ve volunteered, and there are a few issues that are holding us back. As on the troop level, I’ve been through the wringer when it comes to governance, so I feel like this is a Hail Mary to try to give our local democratic process some life. If you’re interested in reading the proposal, here’s a link to it.

Then there’s national governance and national affairs. If you’re a reader of GSWAC (Not a Council), you’ll know that for most of this blog’s life, I’ve been advocating for the democratic process to fix our organization’s ills and attempting to bring attention to national topics of concern. To be completely transparent with you, I felt like I was able to do so because I had inside sources that helped me see the big picture. I no longer have those inside sources and only hear things piecemeal now (if at all), so as a big picture person, I don’t feel like I have the capacity to “see” things anymore. I don’t know if other big picture people are the same way, but if I’m missing a good bit of the puzzle pieces, I feel like I can’t draw any real conclusions on what’s happening out here in the field. I don’t have the confidence anymore to share my viewpoint, so I’ve withdrawn. You might have noticed I don’t write as much as I used to and that my writing has suffered. This has affected me in my own council as well in that I don’t share input or engage like I did in years past.

While our national leadership has opened up and communicates with the National Council, National Delegates and council leadership by and large have kept what information they’re receiving close to the vest from their memberships, so all of this supposed good news is happening in an echo chamber. Some info trickles down to me (not through my council’s National Delegates but through friends from other councils), but I don’t know if it’s something I can share publicly or not, so once again, I sit here silently.

I’ve wondered if what I’m feeling is just pure burnout. Is it time for me to hang all of it up once my daughter graduates in two years and find something else to do with my time? I’ve thought about ending the blog now (and even came up with a great title for it), but I’m having a hard time pulling the trigger.

When it boils down to it, I currently feel like I don’t have a place, and therefore, I don’t know if this blog serves a purpose anymore. I’ve lost my voice, and I don’t know where to go from here. Maybe you can help me figure it out.