Repotting Process

There’s a moment in healing where the work shifts. First, it’s pruning. We pull the weeds, snip the dead leaves, clear the clutter that’s taken over our lives—relationships, habits, thought loops, survival patterns. And that work is important. It clears space. It lets in light. But eventually, we realize it’s not enough.

We’re still rootbound.

Tangled up in the versions of ourselves we had to become in order to survive.

That’s where I found myself when I wrote this poem. I realized I had outgrown the pot I was planted in—not just physically or emotionally, but spiritually. My survival systems were too tight. There was no room for me to breathe, to stretch, to thrive.

So the work became quieter. More careful. I didn’t need to destroy anything—I needed to repot.

I had to get tender with the parts of myself that had wrapped around everything else. I had to slowly, gently loosen the roots. Separate what was me from what I had become because I had to. And in doing that, I began to see the original shape of myself again.

The one I began as.

The one who still lives underneath it all.

This kind of growth doesn’t look flashy from the outside. There’s no sudden bloom or dramatic transformation. It’s in the slow unfurling. The new soil. The choice to stay—but stay in a way that supports the real you, not just the version of you who knew how to survive.

This is what happens when the soil shifts.

When staying becomes growing.

Repotting Process Poem:

Like a spider plant

in an overcrowded pot

new shoots sprouting

with every situation I had to survive.

Roots tangled tight,

wound around themselves.

I've been pulling weeds,

snipping dead leaves,

doing the surface work.

But what I really need

is to dig deeper

gently lift the plant from the soil,

unwind the roots,

separate what grew from survival

from what came first.

To find her again

the original.

The one before.

The one I’ve always been.

My authentic self.

A quiet invitation:

Where in your life do you feel rootbound—still growing, but in a space too small for who you’re becoming?

What might it look like to gently repot yourself—what needs loosening, letting go, or nourishing?

-The Story Witness

I hold what was buried, and I write what is living.

The Story Witness

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.

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Next, I’ll share what happens when the soil shifts - when staying becomes growing.

The Middle Soil

I’ve uprooted so much of my life.

Torn through beliefs, identities, and ways of being that no longer served me.

Walked away from versions of myself that were built on survival.

But this—

This is the layer I didn’t even realize I was avoiding.

The one that stayed tucked just beneath the surface, holding the weight of it all.

It’s not the loud traumas.

Not the obvious wounds.

It’s the grief that never had words.

The habits I didn’t consciously choose but found myself living in, over and over again.

The way I flinched at softness, even when I craved it.

This is the layer where tenderness lives—

Where memories don’t always speak in full sentences

but in the quiet clench of my jaw, the tired ache in my shoulders,

the way I sometimes forget to breathe all the way in.

It’s easy to think healing is a straight line.

That once you name something, or leave something, or grow beyond something—

you’re done.

But healing is circular. Spiral-shaped. Rooted.

And sometimes, we come back to old ground,

not because we’ve failed,

but because we’re ready to meet it differently.

More resourced.

More whole.

More honest.

This is what I’ve found in the middle soil.

The place beneath survival.

The quiet hum of becoming.

It’s not glamorous.

There are no finish lines.

Just the steady rhythm of turning toward myself again and again.

Of touching the parts I once believed were too tender to hold.

Of noticing what lives inside me now—not just what I’ve lost.

This is the part of me that’s finally ready to breathe.

To soften.

To witness.

And to write—not just about the pain, but the life that pulses beneath it.

I hold what was buried,

and I write what is living.

—The Story Witness

Welcome to The Story Between

This space was never meant to be polished.

It was never about having the answers, wrapping things up with a perfect bow, or offering a clean beginning or end.

Instead, The Story Between was born from the messier truth—the part most of us try to rush past.

The middle. The ache. The stretch. The becoming.

This is the story between.

Not the origin. Not the resolution.

But the space where healing happens slowly—where grief softens and sharpens at once.

Where motherhood and loss blur.

Where trauma still echoes, even as softness begins to speak louder.

I created this living archive to hold all of it. The pieces I didn’t always have language for until now.

The stories I once buried to survive.

The moments I thought were too unfinished to matter.

And the sacred truths that have only started to find their voice now that I’ve stopped bracing for the next blow.

Here, I write from the in-between:

between trauma and healing

between silence and story

between surviving and rooting into life again.

Some pieces will be carried by R.M. Seren—the version of me learning to soften, to mother myself, to let the breath come back.

Others will be voiced by Reni M. Ashen—the part still holding fire, still untangling herself from survival.

Each one holds truth. Each one matters.

You won’t find linearity here. You’ll find cycles, seasons, spirals.

You’ll find unfinished thoughts and deep reckonings.

And you’ll find room—room to witness your own story in whatever shape it takes right now.

If you’ve ever felt caught between who you were and who you’re becoming, I want you to know you’re not alone.

You’re not behind.

You’re not broken.

You’re just in the middle.

And maybe, that’s exactly where you need to be.

Welcome to The Story Between.

—The Story Witness

I hold what was buried, and I write what is living.