Kate Medina Writes

Someone switched the light off. 

 It felt sorta sudden.

And here we are, traversing the pitch.

Feeling our way with awkward hands through uncertain days with anxious hearts.  

It’s a weirdish existence, learning to reconcile the fear, loss and devastation alongside humorous quarantine memes, folks lamenting over chaotic kid-filled homes, and the unfortunate dilema of consuming boredom. 

And yeah,  I may have mentally redecorated my bedroom four times over this past week.

Cause shallow escapism is one way to cope. 

Temporarily.

In the bowels of all this gloom, we wait, desperate for a smidge of anything good; a bright prospect flickering in the darkness. 

On January 11th, 1989, President Reagan gave his farewell to the nation address. Dubbed “The Great Communicator”, Reagan spoke with great conviction, authority and rectitude.

And his parting lesson for the nation came in one perfectly tweetable quote…

(If that would have been a thing back then.)

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” 

President Ronald Reagan

I concede it may not seem a revolutionary assertion, but that doesn’t negate its discernment.  

Perhaps this mandated margin has rediscovered for us the goodness in gathering around the table. 

The restorative aroma of home cooked meals, face to face conversations, board game playing, and daily togetherness once again fills our spaces. 

Suddenly kitchen tables, backyard fire pits, and front porch swings have become nourishing places of rich connection and revived creativity.      

 Yes, simplicity is having it’s way with us, and we are better for it. 

And maybe it’s not the remedy we are looking for most right now;

 But could it be what we most need? 

To know that as much as this darkness is disorientating, it is also reorienting fundamental pieces of us we’ve long forgotten. 

Over and over, I replay this verse from the song, In the Embers…

Like fireworks

We pull apart the dark

Compete against the stars

With all of our hearts

Till our temporary brilliance turns to ash

We pull apart the darkness while we can

-Sleeping at Last

It is not lost on me, the privilege of having people to gather with, nor the home, food or table around which we gather. 

This is not everyone’s circumstance. 

But heading into Easter weekend, I am especially grateful for the ONE that ripped through the darkness like no other. 

And I want with all my feeble heart to follow His lead. 

Even in this. Especially in this.    

As I feel my way through the wreckage, grieving my lost delusion of control… 

I will pull apart the darkness, in every small way I can.

Dinner’s at six.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 

John 1:5

My older brother survived our childhood, barely, as life with three contentious sisters played out like a scene from Hunger Games most days.

The Czarnecki homestead saw its share of verbal smackdowns and indignant scheming for sure- 

My brother, perhaps the most ornery of all. 

And I adore him all the more for it…in adulthood, anyway. 

Years of shenanigans the four of us siblings gifted our parents. 

One such infraction found my brother “accidentally” blowing up a toilet at our high school resulting in weeks of expulsion. 

Hilarious now.

Not so much then.

As I currently experience what it is to raise multiple teenagers, I offer condolences to my parents about two decades too late.

Mom, Dad- We were idiots. 

I made up my mind long ago that I would not base my worth as a person nor a parent on these four beautiful lunatics I am raising.

I will admit, however, it is difficult not to intertwine their misbehaved moments with my bruised ego as a parent.   

Because being a grown up is a lot of deciding what you’re gonna care about.

In her book, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamont tells of a concept she learned from a friend early in her writing career, 

“Every single one of us at birth is given an emotional acre all our own. There’s a fence around your acre, though, with a gate, and if people keep coming onto your land and sliming it or trying to get you to do what they think is right, you get to ask them to leave. And they have to go, because this is your acre.”

How true and hopeful to know that yes, we all have this emotional acre within us to cultivate according to our deepest convictions.

In this acre we get to decide what we are going to care about. 

This matters greatly because what we care about inhabits a large part of our emotional acre;

And largely informs how we manage all the rest of it. 

It determines our pursuits, our motives and responses, and how we nourish our emotional inner space. 

Sometimes I forget that I have a choice in this.  

We all know what it feels like to carry an emotional load that’s just too much. 

When we make a decision about what we are going to care about, by default we are also choosing what we will NOT care about.

Just as important. 

Cause when we make these decisions, there will always be thoughts, emotions and influences that we will have to escort out of the gate because they no longer serve us in a nourishing way.

Lately, I find myself asking what I’m going to care about.

The most recent political buzz, what folks are up to on Instagram, the dimples in my thighs, or how my 14 year old just back talked me…again, or the crabgrass growing in my backyard, or the rapidly declining honey bee population?

 I mean, there’s a lot there to cram into my one emotional acre;

And I bet you have a lot vying to occupy your one acre of real estate too.

So I’ve made some decisions that I will continue to fine-tune as life offers new things to care about daily.

Being clear regarding what I will and won’t care about allows me the mental and emotional capacity to focus on the things and people that matter most.

And I wonder, what fills the space in your acre these days? 

What do you need to care about a little more (or perhaps a little less) in this season of life? 

Thinking about those years ago with my brother, when the crap literally hit the fan at Madison Comprehensive High school- 

I pray the toilet bowl moments of life will reveal a well tended emotional acre within  me. 

Because I decided to care about the right things along the way. 

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  -Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)

Valentine parties in the 1980’s were sorta a big deal at Eastview Elementary.

February, found us kiddos barely holding it together in anticipation of the chocolate saturated celebrations that were about to ensue. From cards to candy grams, games and fun, it was a red and pink free for all. However, no aspect excited us more than the Valentine box contest. 

Each classroom, turned gallery of homemade artistry, found us proudly displaying our creative endeavors on top our desks in hopes of being chosen for the climax of all Valentine events, the Winner’s Parade.

And wouldn’t you know it, the same kid, Brian Breightenger, won this event-

Every.

Stinkin.

Time. 

Our sixth grade year, (otherwise know as Brian’s magnum opus) he showed up with a miniature version of the Love Boat (google it) spanning 3 feet long, and built out of wood.

Wood! With actual nails, and cute little lifesaver preservers to accent the boat’s three tiered deck. Seriously? 

The pride in our own valentine handiwork quickly dissolved as the rest of us stood defeated with our piddly elmer glued cardboard boxes and glitter sprinkled paper bags. 

Brian’s victorious Valentine boat submission was so immense that he required help carrying it through the school parade route. I mean, he was literally showboating. 

And we were all a bit jealous.

So I did what any insecure twelve year old would do and I called his boat stupid.

I mean, obviously he had help. What elementary kid knows how to operate a jigsaw? Shouldn’t there be rules about the authenticity of each participant’s craftsmanship? Jesh. 

And here we are thirty-some years later and still in the same boat. (wink)

Only now, it’s not an “official” contest, but somehow life in general feels like an everyday contest. Right? 

And there’s always someone with a bigger boat. 

While I truly want to be a person that champions others, full of affirmation and high fives…

Sometimes my twelve year old self shows up instead. 

And I start calling things stupid. 

Not audibly (usually).

But when my exterior world is a little too full and loud, I find my interior world getting a little judgey, sarcastic or critical… the ugly underbelly of envy. 

Which is usually my cue to take a time out. At least for a bit.  

Cause we all have an internal monologue.

Emotional maturity is the ability to connect our internal monologue to the current condition of our hearts.

Don’t miss that. 

This “show and tell” culture begs the insecure 12 year old in all of us to come out and play. 

And every time we judge, criticize or compare ourselves with others, our hearts shift a little towards bitterness. 

But when we pay attention to our inner chatter, we can discern when to shut down the outer chitchat for a bit in order to relocate some perspective and truth on our heart’s behalf. 

(and on behalf of those we’re calling stupid.) 

So, this inner listening thing requires us to get honest.

Yep, we have to actually call ourselves out sometimes. 

And then put ourselves in time out, until we’re ready to play nice again.

Cause life is gonna hand us plenty of  Love Boat kinda days;

And I’d much rather my grown up self show up to greet them.

Sidenote: I may or may not have embellished the magnitude and details of Brian’s love boat…it’s been a minute since 6th grade, but I’m pretty sure my memory serves me correctly….almost. Also, Brain was absolutely one of the nicest kids at Eastview Elementary – true story.

It’s February… 

By now 80% of our  New Years resolutions have sadly failed for one reason or another. (sigh)

Personally, January was less about proclamations regarding a new me, and more about introspectively lingering in the past decade- this girl’s attempt to make sense of  the well planned hooplas, hijacked detours and all the ordinary in between.

My nut shell version included moving to a new home, adding a son and another daughter to our family, a few vacations, hosting countless pool parties, sleep overs, celebrations and home groups, trading in my flip phone for and an iphone, traveling to Haiti, Ethiopia, Poland, Austria, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and London, losing a good friend to cancer, experiencing a tiny (okay, not so tiny) breakdown mid-decade, raising four toddlers into three teens and a tween (see previous breakdown) and learning some grown up truths surrounding poverty, racism, privilege and responsibility. 

Out of all that living, countless lessons surfaced–slapped me in the face really, cause that’s how it goes with me.

But what stands out most is the blitzkrieg of information and connectivity we encountered thanks to the rapid evolution of technology. 

It radically changed us and the way we do life. 

And I just wasn’t ready for all its far-reaching implications. (cause teens)     

This ever shifting culture of frantic pace-keeping, curated timelines, and crazed fears of missing out mingled with expectations of round-the-clock availability and maintained relevance upended my proclivity towards less with all its more.  

And it turns out face value has little value in today’s marketplace of image management as more than ever in the history of humanity, ours is a society of comparison and never-enoughness. 

And this tech-driven landslide has basically been a decade long “situation” for me.   

I’ve both tiptoed around it, and ranted in lunacy about it. (I recommend neither response.)

And yes, evolving technology is not the enemy.

Technology is neutral. 

Humans, on the other hand, are not.

Turns out we’ve got feelings, opinions, convictions, motives, stories and egos enough to fill the stratosphere.

And they are anything but neutral.

And there’s these three teens and a tween that I’ve been leading rather clumsily through this ordeal, with it’s ever shifting capabilities, rules and applications. 

After a decade of this informational assault, I’ve sorta forgotten pieces of myself that I’d like to reclaim please.  

What I’ve learned is our tech driven culture is a daily sifting and reeducation. 

And there’s this undeniable correlation between the groundedness of our character and the integrity of our digital footprint and mental health. 

As parents and individuals we must constantly examine our intake, be willing to expand our capacity for learning and understanding, all while resolutely protecting the values and ethics that hold us together.

Yeah, so that’s what I’m bringing into this new decade… a groundedness among my people. 

For us, that begins with deciding who we are and what we’re about and then surrounding those ideas in conversation and clear articulation. 

We are drawing some lines. 

C.S. Lewis wrote, “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”

Unless we determine and commit to some distinct line drawing, culture will have it’s way with us.  

And let me tell you – culture does not have your people’s backs. 

On a practical level, we created a family manifesto of sorts…

This resolution is the groundedness that informs our thinking, doing and being;

We’ll come back to it frequently when the boarders around our living begin to get a little wonky.    

And yes, I fully realize that we will have to fight for every inch of it.    

But this is who we want to be and how we want to show up in this new decade.

It’s not the complete answer to navigating all the crazy around us;

But it’s a good start.

 And a sure place to remember ourselves.