September 2
Still a Member
The election is over, and somebody else has the job. We expected to feel relieved. Instead, we feel slightly invisible. People direct their questions elsewhere, and the meeting carries on without checking with us. A part of our belonging had become tied to being the person who knew, arranged, or decided things.
Tradition Two is candid about the discomfort of leaving a position. It also offers the possibility of continuing usefulness without office. Experience remains available, though it need not be offered at every opportunity. We can enjoy a meeting without supervising it, answer when asked, and discover which friendships were being crowded out by our duties. There may be grief in letting go of work we loved. We do not have to disguise that grief as evidence that the new person is doing everything wrong.
What remains of my belonging when I am no longer the person in charge of a task?
There is still a chair for me.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Tradition Two, pp. 134–135.