I Closed the Courtroom in My Head

For a long time I kept a courtroom running in my head.

Not a real one. A private one. It was open every night, and I was always the one at the podium.

I argued with people who had written about me. I argued with people who never asked my side. I argued with the man I used to be. I won every case, too. Every single one.

And I never got one minute of peace out of any of them.

The trial nobody else attends

Here is what I figured out slowly.

Nobody else was in that room. The people I was arguing with were asleep. They had moved on to their own lives and their own problems. The only person losing sleep in that courtroom was the one doing all the talking.

I was rehearsing answers to questions nobody was asking me anymore.

That is a strange kind of work. It feels like preparation. It feels responsible, like if you just get the words right this time, something gets settled. But nothing gets settled. You just get better at the argument, and the argument gets better at keeping you up.

What the Marine Corps and the search line already taught me

In the Marine Corps, and later in search and rescue, you learn to work the problem in front of you.

On a search, you do not stand at the trailhead arguing about how the person got lost. You do not relitigate the weather. You work your sector. You call in what you find. You keep moving.

The courtroom in my head was the opposite of that. It was all trailhead and no search. All the energy of a mission with none of the ground covered.

When I finally saw it that way, I could not unsee it.

The verse I keep coming back to

There is a line in Exodus that stopped me cold the first time I read it with this in mind.

"The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." Exodus 14:14.

Hold your peace. Not win the argument. Not draft the perfect reply. Hold it, like something you could drop if you are not careful.

I used to read that as a call to be passive. I do not read it that way now. It is a call to quit doing a job that was never mine, so I have both hands free for the one that is.

How I close it, most nights

I would love to tell you I shut that room down for good. I did not. It still tries to open some nights.

But I have a few things that work for me now.

I name it. When I catch myself arguing in my head, I say it plainly, at least to myself. Court is in session again. Just naming it takes some of the air out.

I ask one question. Is there anything I can actually do about this tomorrow? If yes, I write it down and let it wait for daylight. If no, it is not mine to carry tonight.

I hand it over. Out loud, usually. Short and plain. Lord, this one is yours. I am going to sleep.

I go back to the people in the room with me. I have a son now. He does not need a father who is busy winning arguments with strangers. He needs one who is present. That is the case that actually matters, and it does not get argued. It gets lived.

The verdict I stopped waiting for

Some things will never get the hearing I wanted. Some people will never hear my side. I used to think peace would come when that changed.

It came when I stopped needing it to.

That is not giving up. That is putting the gavel down and walking out into the daylight where my life actually is.

If you have a courtroom like that running in your own head, you are not weak and you are not alone. You are just tired from a trial nobody else is attending.

You are allowed to close it for the night.