Welcome to the Afterlife

How do you sum up the completion of a five year mission?  And what comes next?

Star Trek never got that far in the original series, so they didn't have to explore what comes after.  The Next Generation was smart enough to change its lead to a continuing mission and that turned out well because they went seven seasons.

But I always knew that this mission had a shelf life and a termination date and that is actually a good thing.  There's nothing like a finish line to really get you sprinting.

I think that everyone else's expectations of the finish though, are more strange than the finish itself.  Here's what I mean.

I got back from Grand Chapter exhausted, but I was expecting that.  At least the drive is under three hours.  We got all the cars (yes, plural) unloaded and everything mostly in the room of the house in which it belonged.  I unpacked the suitcases and dress bags, stuck the multiple boxes of gifts in the craft room for later opening and cataloging, put the boxes of paper in the living room for unpacking and sorting, etc.

Then I started a list of the after tasks.  It looked something like this:

Unpack gifts, catalog, write thank you notes.
Send thank you gifts as needed.
Send final thanks and e-mail address changes to GOs, DGMs, WMs.
Sort papers into keep for me, keep to use for GM (now AGC yay!), give to GM, trash.
Clean off calendar and set up for 2017 to give GM.
Sort and book up photos from year(s).
Mount pictures and quilt on wall in place of calendar and pin map.
Clean house - Clean house - Clean house!
Write Final Blog.

I would love to say that I am on the last step and everything else is done, but that would not quite be true.  I did completely fill my recycling can with paper, which I have never managed before, so that I would be ready for tomorrow, when my GM will come to my house to get the calendar and pin map - yay some more! - and boxes and boxes and boxes and the all important flash drive with all my spread sheets, mail merge letters, databases, outlines, time lines, workshop sheets, etc., etc.  The reinvention of the wheel just has to stop!

I hope to have plenty of time to do all those other things in the next couple of months, but as it happens, the November calendar seems to be filling up, which I confess I did not expect, and that is where what others thought would happen and what is happening aren't quite meshing for me.

I had heard plenty of stories about Past Grands who think that they're phone's been disconnected or their e-mail turned off because everything just STOPS!  And it is true that my fifty e-mails a day have dropped to about five or ten, but five or ten is not zero.  I had heard stories that no one wants you anymore when you are done, but November is filling up.  It will be nice though to do just a FEW installations instead of two dozen.  I had someone tell me that I should expect that no one would want to speak with me after Grand Installation was over, but I got stopped so many times trying to get out of there that my Worthy Grand Patron and I were probably among the last to leave.  So what's up with that?  I mean, I certainly don't mind and some stuff is better than both TONS of stuff or NO stuff, so I do really feel like I am getting into the sweet spot, but it is not what I was told to expect.

But maybe since I came at it from a different place, I have ended up in a different place.  Before I got in the Grand Line, I used to get stopped and asked questions constantly at Grand Chapter because I was on, or Chair of, Jurisprudence and everyone always had questions.  There were times that I would hide in friend's suites to get a few minutes to eat lunch.  It got a lot worse after my mentor passed away because then I started getting her questions and my questions.  But for some of my now fellow Past Grands, they weren't really in the question and answer loop before they went into the Grand Line so why would they be afterwards?  Maybe we do get to go back to being who we were before, only with Grand Honors added and I am told that I get to sit behind the flag for a year, but can't fall asleep even though I have "cover."  We'll see how that works.

I am also still wrestling a bit with what I want to do next.  My medieval group has already put up a clamor for me.  They knew that I was done this October and I understand that my name is already being passed around for two different Kingdom wide offices that want me.  That would sort of be the moral equivalent to going back to being a state officer again - I was the SCA equivalent of Grand Treasurer for three years before I became Grand Warder back in 2007, and the offices for which I am being kicked around as a possible "volunteer" are that one and well, I guess the closest equivalent would be Grand Lecturer with a full cadre of Assistant Grand Lecturers.  But I don't know any of the new people anymore, so maybe I can beg off for a while so that I can see and learn the new faces first.  I have been warned though to be careful when I start attending events again.  They say that you should never go to the bathroom while there is a discussion of needing someone to volunteer because you'll come back and find that you said yes - that's true in Chapters too, isn't it? :-)

I have also been suggested to become the state head of one of my business trade groups.  That has some appeal too, since there are only quarterly meetings and four between meeting conference calls.  However that all happens during work hours, so I would have to make up time.  But I think I may do that since it would be a nice addition to my CV.

And of course there are still the residual obligations of being Worthy Grand Matron to get through.  I have a dozen or so events on my calendar already, either to support my little sister who is now Worthy Grand Matron (Yay for her!!!) or to support those who served in my year.  I've already got four GO and DGM receptions to attend for which I need to write remarks and am already starting to get questions and calls from Grand Representatives about my 2014 calendar, so there is all of that to do, along with all the support things for my Grand Marshal, who is now Associate Grand Conductress (yay some more!).

Summing it all up, I don't see that anything is really going to be QUIET!  It does seem that it will be less busy and less rushed and I may even get back in the practice of going on a real vacation every year.  That will be really nice!  I am going on a little five day getaway in December, but next year, I want to go for a whole week without it being a road trip to attend Official Visits - Yay multiple times!

Thank you to everyone who came along on this journey with me.  I hope that you have found this blog occasionally interesting, funny, informative or useful.  I have enjoyed writing it and wish that I had been able to write as much this year as in previous years, but two full time jobs, the one that I am paid for and serving as Worthy Grand Matron, really does barely leave you time for sleeping, eating and showering, let alone much else.  Now I have to try to remember what I used to do before all this started and put together another future.  Wish me luck!