Honestly, Sandie

I think I’ve accidentally been writing the same story for three years.

Which is inconvenient because I thought I was writing about church.

Church is easy.

Church is meetings and volunteer schedules and leadership decisions and weird conversations that make absolutely no sense ten years later.

Church is a setting.

A backdrop.

A building.

People leave churches every day.

People find new churches every day.

People survive church all the time.

But friendship?

Friendship is a whole different animal.

That’s the part that got me.

That’s the part that still gets me.

I knew the story was friendship long before I admitted it.

That’s why every time someone left, it felt bigger than it was supposed to.

I wasn’t looking around wondering who was going to fill a volunteer position.

I was wondering if anyone else noticed that someone was gone.

I wasn’t counting attendance.

I was counting people.

The family that always sat over there.

The couple who used to serve every Wednesday.

The teenager who suddenly stopped showing up.

The friend who disappeared quietly enough that eventually everyone stopped mentioning them.

Meanwhile, I was over here acting like we’d lost a limb.

And maybe that’s why some of this has been so hard to untangle.

Because I eventually realized not everyone was grieving the same thing.

Some people were protecting the organization.

I was trying to protect the relationships.

Those are not the same job.

And once you see that, you can’t really unsee it.

Taylor Swift has a song called Hits Different.

It’s technically about a breakup.

But every time I hear it, I think about friendship.

Because some people leave and life keeps moving.

Some friendships belong exactly where they happened.

Some naturally fade into good memories.

And then there are the ones that sneak up on you when you’re folding laundry.

Or driving home.

Or standing in Costco trying to remember why you walked into aisle twelve.

The ones that make you stop and think, “Huh. That still hurts a little.”

Those are the friendships that hit different.

So that’s what this series is about.

Not church.

Not leadership.

Not who was right.

Not who was wrong.

People.

The ones who shaped me.

The ones who stayed.

The ones who left.

The ones I miss.

The ones who still make me laugh.

The ones I still don’t understand.

To protect identities, everyone gets a gemstone instead of a name.

And over the next thirty days, you’ll meet them.

Some sparkle.

Some crack under pressure.

Some change depending on the light.

Some are still sitting in my jewelry box years later.

All of them mattered.

And if I’m right, somewhere along the way you’ll probably recognize a few gemstones from your own story too.

Song pick: 🎵 Hits Different — Taylor Swift

Music has always helped me process things before I have words for them. This song isn’t a perfect match for my story, but it captures something familiar: the way certain relationships linger long after they’re gone. The way some losses surprise you years later. The way some people simply hit different.