Homesick

JUST STAY

6 / 16 / 2026

May-Dec 2007

I feel a burning arise in my chest.

I look around at my fourth grade classmates - talking, laughing, getting settled for the movie.

Panic engulfs my system and I take off spiraling into the treacherous abyss of anxiety.

And all of a sudden, I can’t breathe.

I’m not sure what happens next. I think I alerted a friend, and all of a sudden I’m in the nurses office. My feet dangling from the seat.

My classmates pass by one by one, peering in, as they “get water from the water fountain” that just so happens to be right next to the nurse’s office.

I think of all the times I fantasized about being cool enough to break a limb and the attention I’d get. Well, it seems there is another way to get this attention and it’s by having a panic attack. However, now that I’m living it, it’s not nearly as cool as it once seemed.

I see the boy I like pass by. There is kindness in his eyes.

The nurse tells me I’m okay. Tells me she’s going to call my mom and I can go home.

The doctor says it is acid reflux. It was from the pizza sauce. Don’t eat things like that anymore. I have to drink this terrible white chalky liquid and do a strange test where they look at my stomach. I stand in this glass box as they scan my body. I’m so claustrophobic, I’m afraid I’ll panic. The doc puts me on Zantac.

I have a few more “panic attacks” following that. I’m not too sure it matters what I eat. The doctor reaffirms it is acid reflux. Other kids have this too.

I realize I like going to the hospital when I felt this way, because I feel like doctors will save me if something really bad happens.

Little did I know, it was a little more existential than the doctors were equipped for.

April 2022

“Okay, a functional medicine doctor is great. But what can’t you digest Amanda?”

I’m currently on a GI protocol from a functional doctor. Things seem to be improving slightly. I told my mentor about it. Now she’s asking me what I can’t digest, but metaphorically?

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but she looks at me like I do.

I sit across from her on the couch. I’m kind of annoyed because I’m already hesitant about the protocol I’m on since I’m taking twelve supplements at once. It feels like the last thing I should be doing is trying to force one more thing down. But I’m willing to try and give it my full effort.

Although I must admit, the suggestion there might be an emotional or even spiritual component is intriguing. But there’s no way that’s what is having the biggest impact. At this point, I only believe in evidence and things that can be measured. And if that’s true, it might mean the lens I’ve been given to understand health is incomplete.

My mentor’s wisdom wasn’t landing yet. But she asked me something that I’d never stop asking myself.

June 2026

I feel my body start to relax and the thinking does not take center stage for a moment.

I feel my energy open up my spine and run towards the floor. I feel the sheer terror that I have to be with in order to ground more. To arrive here, on this Earth, more fully.

I “just stay”.

Reality, including the tops of the jungle trees, come into focus. It’s like I remember how to see. My thoughts cleanse and transform to a perspective of a higher frequency. Tears fill my eyes.

Now that I’m more grounded, I notice the subtle ways energy tends to run upward, in my chest and my shoulders. Making it apparent that my natural state tends to exist with everything a bit elevated, all running up toward my head.

My mid belly softens a little more. I remind myself it’s safe to be here fully. It’s safe to come down from my mind and actually be present, with my life right in front of me. My stomach makes noises. I burp a lot.

I “just stay” with myself some more. Letting myself know, that whatever I’m experiencing right now is ok. It doesn’t need to be different.

It’s vulnerable to walk around so sober, so naked in my life. Where I can meet someone else’s eyes in full presence and actually feel myself in them and how alike we really are. It’s exposing, hilarious, and sometimes too scary for people to hold. It takes courage. But it also feels like a sense of safety inside myself I’ve been searching for my whole life. Not because I didn’t grow up in a warm home and with a beautiful family - but because home needs to be found within.

I remember - This - this - is where belonging lives.

And it’s a beautiful and humbling practice every day for me.

So I ask,

What is your body trying to bring you home to?