Apparently, My Rabbit Holes Have Assigned Days Now

If you’ve been here awhile, you already know my brain does not believe in staying in one lane.

One day I’m digging through an old newspaper. The next I’m thinking about childhood, Church history, an ancestor I wish I could sit down with for an hour, or some completely unnecessary historical detail that has suddenly become very necessary to me.

A lot of this blog so far has been me explaining who I am.

Where I came from. What shaped me. The people, places, experiences, beliefs, memories, and wonderfully strange rabbit holes that helped make me me.

I think I needed to do that first.

Because now I’m ready to move toward the heart of why I wanted to write this blog in the first place.

Building bridges.

Especially when someone we love leaves the Church.

Especially when families find themselves divided by belief, hurt, misunderstanding, distance, or estrangement.

Especially when loving someone becomes more complicated than any of us expected it to be.

I don’t have a magic formula for fixing those relationships. I don’t think anybody does. And I’m certainly not writing from a mountaintop where I’ve figured everything out and can now explain it to everybody else.

I’m writing from somewhere in the middle.

I want to talk about what happens when people who once stood in the same place no longer do. How we listen without surrendering everything we believe. How we make room for somebody else’s experience without pretending it has to become our own. How we disagree without turning another person into an enemy. And how, when possible, we keep reaching across a divide instead of making it wider.

Sometimes those bridges are between siblings.

Sometimes they’re between parents and children, extended family members, friends, or people sitting in the same church building who have absolutely no idea what the person beside them is carrying.

And sometimes the bridge isn’t reconciliation yet.

Sometimes it’s simply understanding.

That is where I want this blog to go.

The history, memories, ancestors, odd discoveries, and rabbit holes aren’t disappearing. Heaven knows I’m incapable of that.

I also serve as a temple ordinance worker, and every once in a while, something will cross my mind while I’m serving that stays with me. Maybe it’s a thought I want to sit with a little longer, a question I want to explore, or simply something that makes me look at an idea differently. If that happens, don’t be surprised if it eventually finds its way here.

Sometimes inspiration comes while I’m researching. Sometimes it comes from an old memory. And sometimes it finds me during an evening serving in the temple.

Some thoughts simply have a way of following you home.

So I’ve decided to give all of this a little structure.

Certain kinds of posts will have their own days of the week. Monday might be for musings. Tuesday might take us back in time. Friday might be for something strange or fascinating I found while researching. Saturday can shine a spotlight on an ancestor or another person whose story deserves a little room. And Sunday can make space for the deeper conversations about family, belief, estrangement, connection, and building bridges.

This does not mean I’m posting every day.

Good heavens. Nobody needs that kind of commitment from me.

It simply means that when I have something to say, it will have somewhere to land. A little rhythm. A few familiar signposts. Maybe even the illusion that all these rabbit holes were planned.

They were not.

But now they have assigned days.

And underneath all of those different subjects, I hope there will be one thread running through this blog more clearly than ever:

People matter more than winning. Understanding matters even when agreement isn’t possible. And a bridge is worth trying to build, even when you can only put down one plank at a time.

Before I move into this next part, though, I want to say thank you.

Thank you to everyone who has read, followed along, shared a thought, or simply stuck around while I figured out exactly what I was trying to build here.

This blog has slowly become a place where I can put the things I wonder about, the stories I don’t want forgotten, and the things I’m still trying to understand.

I know my brain occasionally takes the scenic route—and then finds another scenic route branching off the first one—but I genuinely appreciate you all for continuing to be here. Your support has meant more to me than I can put into words.

I love you all, and I’m incredibly grateful that you’ve chosen to share a little piece of this journey with me.

So yes, the rabbit holes now have assigned days.

But I finally know where I want the road between them to lead.

Toward each other.