The Council of Wraiths

There’s a council that meets in my head. It’s been in session for 30 years.

I picture them as hooded figures in black robes, seated in a half-circle, arms folded, faces I can’t quite make out. They don’t speak so much as radiate. They convene whenever I’ve done something, and they hand down their verdict before I prepare my defense. The council never adjourns. They’ve been in session since I was in my 20s, and they are very, very good at their job.

I wonder if others have some version of what goes on in my mind. A jury they never asked for, made up of their own worst moments. I gave mine a name and created a visual image of them, because it turns out I can’t fight something I can’t picture in my mind.

Here’s what I’ve learned about my ominous council. Every wraith on it is a failure from a single decade, my 20s, the years I did most of my falling. I lost my father when I was 21, and all the guidance and mentorship I needed as I entered adulthood went with him. I spent the rest of that decade adrift, making the kind of mistakes a person makes when nobody ever taught him the things you’re assumed to already know. The council assembled in those years. They’ve been in their seats, evaluating me ever since.

I have had many verdicts given to me by this council. Three in particular are tough for me to put in the rearview mirror.

The first verdict is about money. By the time I was 28 I was sitting in a house I had no idea how to maintain, holding a five-figure hole of debt I’d dug without ever lifting up and out of a pursuit of things. Credit cards. A line of credit against a home. A budget never balanced because no one ever told me a budget was a thing you balanced. Exactly one other person on earth has ever known the size of the hole I dug.

So now, every single paycheck, my wife and I move money into savings before we do anything else with it. The council takes credit for that verdict, pointing bony fingers at me and reminding me to never dig that hole again. That financial mistake turned into a discipline, and I’m quietly serving a life sentence for it. Ironically, the council of wraiths provided wisdom on me which they always take credit for.

The second verdict is the one I’m gradually overruling, but it’s taken a lot of time to do so.

At the turn of the millennium, tech jobs were everywhere in Washington state, particularly Redmond, Bellevue, and Seattle. I’d look at the postings, ones that would have changed the whole trajectory of my career, and I’d tell myself something I can still hear decades later: “I’ve got a comfortable life in Bellingham doing desktop support for the university.” And then I’d close the browser tab. I never applied for any of those positions.

You might have missed the impact of that last sentence. I didn’t apply and get rejected. I rejected myself, in advance, so that no hiring manager down south ever got the chance to. The council reframed my inaction as contentment. The wraiths did what they do best, not protect me from failure, but prevent me from finding out the “what if.” That’s the verdict I can’t quite forgive myself for. I eventually paid off the financial debt, but this one I’ll never get to know the answer to. I might have had a whole different career awaiting me on the other side of an application I was too afraid to submit, and that not-knowing is permanent.

The third verdict is still under appeal.

There’s a kind of room I don’t walk into anymore. Live hard rock music that is ear-shatteringly loud. It’s the sort of show I actually love to be in. A packed bar or club with the wrong energy running through it. I had to hit the brakes on attending rock shows after one particular night in my 20s when someone got under my skin. I discovered in real time exactly how much physical power I had. It scared me. So the council handed down a life sentence. Never again, never that room. I defied their verdict a few times in my 30s and 40s, but I never felt that excitement and internal joy from my 20s again. I could never fully immerse myself with the joy of a rock show because that council was in my mind the whole time shaking their heads noticeably in the hooded robes, fingers tapping on their folded arms. It’s like I could hear their “tsk, tsk, tsk” over the crunchy guitars and thunderous drums.

I’ve been wondering whether a man in his 50s is really the same man who lost his grip that night. The council of wraiths insist he is. They always insist, there is no possibility of the contrary. In my quieter contemplative moments I am noticing they don’t always get the last word on who I am now based on the worst thing I did back then. That case is still pending. I haven’t ruled on it. The big difference between now and then is that I’m the one holding the gavel. Not the wraiths.

There are other cases on my docket that will never be entered into the public record. A few verdicts I keep serving quietly, without complaint, that sit between me and one other person. Not everything the council holds is for you. A man’s allowed a sealed file or two.

Here’s why I’m writing any of this down at all. For over 30 years I permitted the council to meet unchallenged in the dark to deliberate on my life actions and cast judgment on my shortcomings. Sometime after I turned 50, a switch flipped inside me. I started forgiving myself for what was done in the past. I gained momentum publishing my own words under my own name, where anyone can read them and think whatever they think. I stopped caring what people thought of me. Every one of those choices to rule in favor of myself is a case the wraiths would have thrown out before it reached trial. I’ve chosen to overrule some, but not all of them. Some of their verdicts were appropriate, as I mentioned earlier.

There’s one more thing this council handed me, and it took all these years to see it as a gift instead of a wound. Because I know exactly what it costs to sit in that defendant’s chair, I’ve spent my entire career making sure I never become a hooded figure in a client’s head. Every time I choose not to make someone feel dumb, every time I catch the error before it can embarrass them, that’s me refusing to seat a wraith in somebody else’s council. The beautiful work I try to do for the people I serve grew straight out of the ugly frame in my own mind.

The council of wraiths still convenes in my mind. I don’t think they will ever fully disband. I just don’t let them meet in the dark now. I keep them in the light, hoods back, arms folded, where I can see their faces and they can see mine.

More later...