So..... I received a writ for Laurel a couple of months ago. I will admit that I was not expecting it. I felt the need to write down my thoughts on this before the elevation, just to clear my mind. I am not suffering from impostor syndrome; I know I have done good A&S work. I also do not think, "'Bout damn time!" I'm somewhere in between. Somewhere along the lines of, "Sure, I've done a lot of research projects, but are you sure it's at the level of a Laurel? Look at all of the spelling errors. Have you read my footnotes?"
When I received my writ to the Pelican, I did have impostor syndrome. "How am I being elevated when that person works harder than me?" My friends and worthies did have to show me how much work I had done over the years to make me see that I had earned a seat at the table. Somewhere around a decade later I can see, with clear 20/20 hind sight, that I was listening to the brain weasels a tad too much.
With hind sight I can clearly see the amount of service I had done. How many fencers I taught. How many archers I taught. How many throwers. How many tourneys I ran. How many targets I created. How many site tokens. How many events I autocrated. How many web sites I created. How many pavilions I put up and then packed away. How many newsletters I edited. How many exchequer reports I filled out. How many event reports completed. How many officer positions I've held. The years sitting as a Landed Baron. Acting as a regional marshal. A deputy Kingdom officer and then a Kingdom officer. Hundreds of tables and chairs moved. A metric tonne of dirty dishes cleaned. Sitting here today, I realize that none of these things are what convinced the Order of the Pelican to vote to have me join the Order. None of these things were the tipping point to convince them.
Sitting here today, I can clearly see how many fencers, archers, and throwers I taught to be marshals. I can clearly see how many people I've mentored on the first event they'd autocrated. People who have gone on to autocrat events on their own and then to mentor others. I can see how many people I've encouraged to become local, regional or Kingdom officers by teaching them what I learned when I held those positions. My minions, those people who helped me when I was a Baron, have gone on to their own victories; earning their own places in Orders of High Merit.
I didn't need to teach my proteges and students how to serve; I just needed to encourage them a tad, and offer advice when needed. One now wears the Coronet that once sat upon my head. My students stride across the ranges as if they were born there. I take pride in the fact that they found encouragement in my words to take on more responsibility and do more service.
I was once blinded by imposture syndrome, but now I can clearly see that in the last 30 or so years I moved through the chaos that can be the SCA and left a trail of order, and trained a good number of people to seek the chaos and transform it into order in their own way.
This is how I see myself as a Pelican, today, and this is how I wish to see myself as a Laurel, in a couple of weeks. Only for research and study and documentation and experimentation and teaching, instead of lifting and carrying and marshaling. In less than two weeks I will be asked if I would join the Most Noble Order of the Laurel. The brain weasels are still chatting away but I am not listening to them, today.
