thanks for your time moshu. i tried doing what you asked with the conditional tags. but it just killed the entire sidebar on every post.
it gave me this where the sidebar div should have been
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘}’ in
i copied my entire sidebar code here.
https://wordpress.pastebin.ca/765242
i’m thinking something needs to be changed with one of the first lines of php
<?php if(is_home()) {?>
i’ve done a bunch of trial and error stuff by just changing out a “home” for other words. and nothing changes. i feel like i’m losing my mind because i’m sure it’s just one line and i can’t figure it out.