She Stayed Until She Vanished
This story was originally written in December 2018 at a time when the feelings behind it were new and raw. "She Stayed Until She Vanished" came from a place I wasn’t ready to share then. It was too visceral, too tangled up with my own life to share. So I left it unfinished, telling myself that one day I’d come back and finish it. This is that day! A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since this piece was first written, and the woman I was then feels like a memory, familiar but also far away. With that distance, I now see Emma’s Story for what it is: part fiction, part experience, written in a way that helped me make sense of the things I didn’t quite have the words for at the time. Some of what she feels, I felt. Some of what she lived, I lived. And some of it is the story I needed to tell to understand myself better. Now, with a clearer perspective and some small amendments, this is Emma’s story. However it also carries pieces of me, and perhaps, pieces of others who h...