The Long Middle: Why We Need to Get Better at Staying
There is often a remarkable amount of care concentrated around the moment when a life changes. Then time passes, and the person at the center of it is still living with it.
Read the full essay →Just an Ordinary Tuesday
- Sunrushed through it
- Monstuck in the car
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Tue
this one counted
- Weda hard meeting
- Thukitchen-table talk
- Frialmost noticed
- Sathouse finally quiet
Most of life happens on days we never think to name. It happens in the car, around the kitchen table, after a hard meeting, or late at night when the house has finally gone quiet. Those are the moments I keep coming back to.
I write about family, healthcare, leadership, grief, women’s health, creativity, faith, technology, and the questions that follow me home. I am still learning in public and trying to pay attention as life unfolds. I hope something here helps you notice your own life a little more closely too.
’Cause you never know
When an ordinary day
Becomes the one
You’d give anything
To live again.
The latest note
Missing Someone Who Is Still Here
If your mom is still alive and you miss her, I wish you didn’t have to be so careful about saying that. For the families living through the Alzheimer’s years, and the feelings we struggle to say out loud.
Read the essayFind something for the life you’re living
Readers arrive here carrying different things. You might be leading through a difficult season, caring for someone you love, trying to understand your own grief, fighting to be heard, or wondering whether the creative part of you still has something to say. Start wherever your life meets the writing.
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Family, love, and growing older
Marriage, parenthood, adult children, and the ordinary moments families only understand later.
What Fatherhood Really Feels Like
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Leadership and healthcare
Decisions that land on real people, and leading without losing your humanity in the process.
Everyone I Met Told Me About Someone They Loved
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Women's health and advocacy
Endometriosis, menopause, dismissal, and how men should show up for the women they love.
Women Should Not Have to Lose a Decade Before We Believe Them
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Grief, memory, and caregiving
Alzheimer's, the long goodbye, and staying present when nothing can be fixed.
Still My Mom: A Book for Families Facing Alzheimer’s
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Creativity, ADHD, and technology
Scattered ideas, late-night projects, and protecting the human voice inside new tools.
Slop, Soul, and the Reason I Keep Creating
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Faith, change, and what comes next
Belief, doubt, and becoming someone new without erasing who you were.
Still Good: A Book About Leaving Mormonism and Staying Whole
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The latest Tuesdays
New writing about the things I keep carrying long after the day is over.
The People You Sort of Know
I have been traveling quite a bit lately, and coming home has made me notice something about home that I had never given much thought. There are the obvious parts, of course. Kellie, the kids, the dogs acting like I have
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I Still Reach for My Mom
There are still moments when something happens and my first instinct is to tell my mom.
Read the full essay →AI Is Making Us Better at Working Alone. I’m Not Sure We Understand What That Changes.
AI is making individuals more capable — and quietly changing how much we rely on each other at work. What leaders should watch as the tools spread.
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What to Say When Your Wife Is in Pain and You Can’t Fix It
For a long time I thought being a good husband meant being the person who could make things better. Then I found myself loving people through pain I could not solve.
Read the full essay →What to Do When She’s Having an Endometriosis Flare
Your partner is having an endometriosis flare. Here’s what helps, what to have ready, what to avoid, and how to recognize when she needs medical care.
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The Decade Women Lose Before Anyone Believes Them
Samantha got her answer in two years because her mom happened to connect the dots. The next girl should not need that kind of luck to be believed.
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Who the Hell Are We Under All Those Lights?
A night in Vegas with Benson Boone, thousands of phone flashlights, and the woman who has shared nearly twenty-seven years of my life.
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The Work Should Lead Back to People
I rebuilt the site this week so people meet the person before they meet the machinery. Why the writing is now called Just an Ordinary Tuesday, and what my mom taught me about the days nobody circles.
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How Many Years Does It Take to Get an Endometriosis Diagnosis?
My daughter’s endometriosis diagnosis took two years. The average is four to twelve. We got lucky, and luck should not be a diagnostic pathway.
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One-Thirty in the Morning
ADHD, artificial intelligence, and the quiet hours when everything in my head finally has somewhere to go.
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She Left, and I Kept Following the Story
I started with a woman in a red dress and a feeling I could not explain. Following her through three images taught me something about how I create.
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The Game Doesn’t Go On If the Goalie Doesn’t Show Up
What becoming a beer league goalie at midlife taught me about pressure, blame, showing up, and letting go.
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Where All of This Was Leading
Two photographs of my family taken sixteen years apart, and everything that happened in between them that I could never have planned for.
Read the full essay →Everyone I Met Told Me About Someone They Loved
A week in Washington in rooms full of people who believe American healthcare can be worthy of the people it serves. Everyone there had a story.
Read the full essay →Women Should Not Have to Lose a Decade Before We Believe Them
I went to the conference as a health center CEO, and as a husband and father who watched two women I love lose years waiting to be believed.
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What Is It Like to Live With You?
What Is It Like to Live With You? Earlier this week, I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to make my calendars talk to each other.
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Something Is Shifting, and I Want to Help It Grow
People from very different parts of my life keep describing the same feeling. They share no politics or faith, and I want to help it grow anyway.
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Get Out of the Way
A man's case for women leading what comes next. It starts with my mom, a nurse whose work asked for her mind, her patience and her whole strength.
Read the full essay →Still worth thinking about
Some thoughts stay with you. These are a few I keep returning to.
I’ll send you the next one
I named this place after the days nobody circles, so I’m not going to pretend a newsletter is an event. It’s just the next ordinary Tuesday, sent to you instead of sitting here waiting to be found. Essays mostly, and now and then something from the books, music, podcast, art, or advocacy work.
I aim for Tuesdays, twice a month or so, and I don’t always make it. Your address stays private, and leaving is always easy.
I’m Mike.
I lead a community health center in North Idaho. I write books, make music, host a podcast, create art, and advocate for people living with endometriosis. I am also Kellie’s husband and a dad to three grown kids who keep teaching me that attention matters more than I understood when they were young.
Everything here comes from the same life. I write because some experiences keep asking to be understood, and because the right words sometimes help another person feel less alone.