gemstones 30/30

If you’d asked me six months ago to name five gemstones, I probably would’ve panicked. Now I know stones have stories, too. They’re shaped by where they’ve been, what they’ve survived, and the conditions that formed them. I wasn’t looking for rocks. I was looking for a way to tell thirty stories about people who had changed my life. Turns out, the stones were never the point.

For the last three years, I’ve asked myself the same questions over and over. Why can’t I stop talking about those thirteen years? Why do I still think about those people? Why did leaving hurt so much? Why couldn’t I just move on? I finally realized I wasn’t trying to understand what happened to me. I was trying to understand why I’ve always loved people the way I do.

I’ve always collected people.

Not in the creepy way. In the I still remember the song you loved fifteen years ago way. In the I remember the text message that changed everything way. In the I knew that ordinary Tuesday would matter someday way. I’ve spent my whole life paying attention to the things everyone else forgets, and until now I never understood why.

Maybe that’s why photography found me. People think photographers fall in love with cameras. I don’t think that’s ever been true for me. I fell in love with preserving the moments that disappear the fastest. A laugh. A glance across a room. A family portrait that becomes priceless because life changes afterward. Writing has always been the same thing in a different language. I’ve never cared much about titles or accomplishments. Tell me about the people. That’s always been the story I wanted.

I think that’s why leaving hurt the way it did. I wasn’t grieving a building. I was grieving the life I thought I was going to live. I had already decided where I’d grow old. I thought I’d watch those kids become parents. I thought we’d keep celebrating birthdays, showing up for one another, and growing older together. I didn’t lose what had been. I lost what I believed was still coming.

The hardest part wasn’t leaving. It was watching relationships change almost overnight. People I loved disappeared. Some decided I had become the problem. Some never asked what happened. Some never called to see how I was doing. That hurt because it made me question everything. Were those friendships real? Were those years real? Thirty stones later, I finally have my answer. Yes. Some friendships were only meant for a season. Some couldn’t survive after I left. That doesn’t erase what they were. I was there. They mattered. No ending gets to rewrite that.

The biggest surprise wasn’t discovering thirty stones. It was finding someone I’d been missing for a long time. Me. Somewhere inside thirteen years of trying to serve well, lead well, fix things, carry things, and make everyone proud, I slowly stopped trusting the woman I’d always been. The one who noticed people before she noticed platforms. The one who believed conversations mattered more than production. The one who loved without keeping score. She wasn’t gone. She was waiting for me to believe her again.

While researching this series, I read that mineral collectors don’t spend their lives searching for perfect specimens. They’re looking for the ones with the best story. They want to know where they came from, what shaped them, and why they’re unlike every other stone lying beside them. I actually laughed out loud when I read that. Of course they do. That’s exactly how I’ve always loved people. Not because they’re perfect. Because they’re fascinating. Because every single one carries a story worth slowing down long enough to hear.

Sometimes I wonder about the voice that kept whispering, “This isn’t it.” The one I spent years arguing with because I had already decided where my story ended. I was so certain I knew what forever looked like. Then I look around now. The people I thought I’d spend forever with rarely ask how I’m doing. Makes you think. Whatever that voice was, it wasn’t leading me away from love. It was leading me back to myself.

Then I stumbled across something else.

People carry stones as symbols of grief, guilt, fear, or the things they’re finally ready to leave behind. I realized that’s never been my story. I wasn’t carrying stones. I was picking them up. Turning them over. Wondering where they’d been. Learning what made them beautiful. Seeing value where someone else might have kept walking.

People always say not to throw stones.

I never wanted to.

I wanted to understand them.

Maybe that’s why this series exists. Not to keep score. Not to expose people. Not to settle old arguments. Simply to remember. Because remembering is one of the purest ways I know to love someone.

Thirty wasn’t the end.

It was simply where I stopped writing.

I could keep going for weeks. There are names that never made this series who are woven just as deeply into my life. People I still love. People I miss. People who changed me without ever realizing they did. Their stories matter just as much.

For years, I couldn’t stop thinking about one sentence.

You’re in the wrong room.

I argued with it. I defended the room. I convinced myself that if I worked harder, loved better, stayed longer, it would finally feel like home again. I’d already decided where I was going to spend the rest of my life.

Looking back now, I don’t spend much time wondering whose voice it was. I just know it wasn’t leading me away from the people I loved. It was leading me back to the woman I’d always been. The one who noticed people before she noticed platforms. The one who never needed a title to know who she was.

That’s the woman who wrote these thirty stories.

Writing them didn’t help me move on. They helped me come home.

For a long time, I thought I was building a church. I wasn’t. I was building a life. The building changed. The life didn’t.

The people who walked away don’t get to decide whether those years mattered.

I was there.

They mattered.

These thirty stones didn’t turn me into a collector.

They reminded me that I’ve been collecting people my whole life.

There are still stories to tell.

There are still people to love.

There are still moments worth noticing.

After everything that’s happened, I know this is true.

I don’t throw stones.

I tell their stories.

I went back and forth on the song for this one, but I kept coming back to If It’s Not God by Maddie Zahm. Not because I have all the same questions she does, but because one line refused to leave me alone: “The voice in my head has always been right.” I spent years arguing with the voice that kept telling me I was in the wrong room. I thought it was asking me to leave people behind. Looking back, I think it was trying to lead me back to myself. That’s the story these thirty stones ended up telling.