The Story Witness
She emerged when I needed someone to hold the middle of my story—where softness meets survival. The Story Witness is the part of me that listens, stays, and honors the truth without rushing the healing. In this reflection, I introduce the quiet force that made this archive possible.
I didn’t know how much I needed a witness
until I became one.
Not the kind who watches from a distance—
but the kind who stays.
Who gathers what the body remembers.
Who listens when language runs dry.
Who keeps company with the ache beneath healing.
That’s who she is.
The one who holds the middle soil in her palms.
The one who tends to what’s still becoming.
The one who never asks me to rush my blooming.
She is The Story Witness.
After the unearthing comes the noticing.
The dust on old roots.
The breath I almost forgot how to take.
The way grief loops and lingers.
In The Middle Soil, I met the layer I’d long avoided.
The place beneath survival.
The part of me that’s finally ready to breathe.
But someone had to hold space for that unraveling.
To not only feel it—but to see it.
To keep record of what surfaced
without demanding it make sense.
That’s where she first appeared.
Some stories emerge like wildfire—
urgent, fierce, and blazing with truth.
Those belong to Reni M. Ashen.
She writes to break silence, even when it scorches.
Others rise more quietly—
like a held breath, like softened earth after rain.
Those belong to R.M. Seren.
She writes to remember, to restore, to root.
But The Story Witness?
She holds them both.
She watches the weather change within me
and reminds me that no season lasts forever.
She does not fix. She does not flee.
She simply… stays.
This is not a perfect path.
There are days I lose my footing in the in-between.
Days I forget what healing even looks like.
But The Story Between was never meant to be a map.
It’s a mirror.
A mosaic.
A breathing archive of what it means to keep going
even when you’re unsure what’s next.
And if you’ve found yourself in the middle too—
not quite uprooted, not yet replanted—
you are not alone here.
There is space for you in this soil.
There is breath waiting beneath the ache.
Let’s witness what grows.
With soil on my hands and softness in my spine,
—The Story Witness
I hold what was buried, and I write what is living.
Next, I’ll share what happens when the soil shifts - when staying becomes growing.