Life at 29... +2

There's something about my birthday which makes me motivated to do ALL OF THE THINGS. Like updating my blog, changing how I subscribe to my favorite blogs, and completely redoing my Facebook page. Maybe the thought of getting older makes feel as though I need to be productive and show "YES! I am doing things with my life!"

Who knows? But, here I am, exactly a month after my last blog post, I'm writing again. Which is better than the several months or even a year between blog posts. Progress!

As I was catching up on bloggers I used to follow almost religiously but have fallen by the wayside, I decided that if I do want to blog again, I should maybe give you an update on my life. 

My most recent selfie, taken a couple of days ago when I went to go see The King and I. 

Honestly? My life doesn't look a whole lot different than it did when I blogged regularly. 

I'm still working the front desk at a hotel. I different hotel now, I switched in April, but it's the same corporation and position, just a different location. This one is closer to home and the commute is infinitely better. 

I'm also still living with my parents - which I honestly don't mind. We're helping each other out, and I like that I can be so close to them, and my sister and brother-in-law come by all of the time. It also doesn't hurt that my dog, Bandit, always has someone to keep him company.

Yes, Bandit is still doing well and is as awesome as ever. He's even starting to get along with the cat, Peanut.

Speaking of family - my sister and her husband are expecting their first child! This is the biggest news in my family's life, and we're ridiculously excited. They are finding out the gender today (it's a girl!) and we can't wait. Life has been filled with baby shower planning, visits to Babies R Us, and searching Etsy for the cutest clothes.

I'm still reading an obscene amount of books. I had created a goal to actually read less this year because I wanted more balance to my life so I could spend time with family and friends and work on other things. Since I am currently on my 54th book of the year... I'm not sure how successful I've been in this goal. 

I've been attempting online dating - and it hasn't gone well and recently deleted one of the apps and have felt like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I might do a blog or vlog series on it. We'll see.

Then there's my writing. I completed the third draft of my novel after having to cut thousands upon thousands of words to make it ready to send out to literary agents. In April, I began querying. Which... has been a learning experience. (See my most recent post before this one.) But, I recently found a new critique partner and she and I are working together to figure out what's going wrong with my pages and why agents aren't biting. (And I'm reading and sending feedback on the manuscript she's currently working on.) She's been amazing so far and SO helpful. 

In the meantime, I was trying to work on a new novel to distract myself from all of my literary agent rejections. It worked... kind of. Then, around the time I was getting started at my new hotel, I hit a writing wall. Not writer's block per say, because I had a general idea of what I wanted to write. But I couldn't find the motivation and each time I sat down at the computer I couldn't get myself to put words on the page. 

So, I joined a short story contest. I figured having deadlines, a goal, and short story to work on would give me motivation to just get writing again.

It worked. 

You can read it here: http://shortfictionbreak.com/summer-17/ and find the story "Mixed Drinks by Emily Hornburg." The stories are organized by author last name. It's not the best one of the bunch I'm sure, especially since this was my first attempt at such a short story. (Our limit was 1000 words!) But, it was a good exercise for me and gave me inspiration for other short stories. The winners won't be announced for awhile yet as the judges are still reading all of the submissions, but you can vote for readers choice and read all of them. 

Now, I'm working on my next novel, which is a fairy tale mash-up and I'm excited to finally be making progress on it.

Honestly - that's about it. I'm impressed I was able to find so much to say! I would love to hear what's going on in your life and... maybe it'll be sooner than a month from now when I blog next!

If you want regular updates, check out my Facebook page and/or subscribe by email! The form is at the bottom of the page. 

Silence

I can't remember the last time I actively prayed.

There. I said it. It's been something I feel I've had to say out loud for some time, but never had the courage to. Or, perhaps in this case, write it out loud.

Maybe here and there I have the frantic "God, the salt trucks haven't made it out to this highway yet so you better be sure I make it to my destination through these icy roads in one piece" prayer. But.. what Chicagoan hasn't?

Outside of the few church services I make it to these days, I never find myself praying. Even when I do find a rare Sunday morning when I don't have to work and I make it to worship, more often than not my eyes start to glaze over and my mind wanders during public prayers.

Yet, this started to happen long before my current work schedule came into place. I remember when I worked in the church, most Sunday mornings I glossed over the words of the liturgy. The prayers I led for the youth group became trite and compact. I knew the right words to say for the situation and that was that and then it was time to move onto the next thing on the agenda.

There was a time when this wasn't the case. Not to say I've ever had the most active "prayer life" as some would say. For years I attempted to have daily quiet times to myself to read and meditate. If my mind wandered as I drove my car I tried to move my focus into conversation with Jesus. When I was alone in my dorm room I took a stab at saying impromptu prayers out loud. None of these things stuck with me. At least I tried.

In fact, there were distinct moments I even remember hearing God. Maybe not an actual physical voice, but at least three times I heard God talking back.

Once, it was during a Bible study. I remember looking over at the guy I was currently pinning over. (And let's be real - the entirety of my non-existent love life has been me pointlessly pinning over some dude.) The word "wait" popped into my mind. I needed to wait. I can honestly say I did wait, and I still am. For who or what - I have no idea. But I know God still has me in this "waiting" stage.

Another time, it was over a period of several weeks when verses from the book of 1 John kept on appearing in my life. In chapel, in class, conversations with friends, etc. Over and over again I was being reminded of how I needed to love people. While, yes, it was everyone's calling to love one another. It was a specific calling to me and my life, and it was what God wanted me to do. I'm not sure how well I succeed in this, and I view it slightly differently now than I did back then. But, it's something I have taken to heart. Enough to even have the phrase from Les Miserables tattooed upon my arm "To love another person is to see the face of God."

A third, was when I sat at the church where I worship now, years ago, and I looked across the aisle to a friend of mine and the words "This is your church family" popped into my mind. It was strange, because this friend and I weren't necessarily all that close yet. We had the same circles of friends and spent time together, but we weren't quite friends with each other yet. Now, almost a decade later, I do see her as my church family. She's the one I seek out each Sunday morning and we sit in our little section. She's the one I go out to lunch with when worship is done. We talk and text through the week and miss one another when the other can't make it on Sunday morning.

So, I know there is communication with God, and he speaks to us sometimes.

Now, there is silence.

Part of me wants to say God and I have been giving each other the cold shoulder, but I don't think that's quite it. It's not like he and I had a big disagreement and decided to stop talking over a grudge.

It's more like two friends who have lost touch. Not because neither one cared. But because someone moved away, or started a new job, or began a relationship. You keep meaning to have that Skype call or that coffee date... but it never happens. Yet, you know the other one is still there, ready with open arms whenever you do have time.

Maybe that's a bad way of looking at a relationship with God... but there it is.

I know my salvation isn't based on how often I pray and go to church - so please save the Lutheran lecture of "by grace alone..."

I've been reading a lot of Lauren F Winners this year, and in her book Girl Meets God, this is the part of the relationship she would describe as "brushing your teeth next to each other." You're no longer fascinated with each other and every little move you make, finding everything exciting and new. It's that time when you go through your routine, and brush your teeth next to each other. We know all of each others stories (or think we do) so the day is filled with silence. You're both there, but it's not quite the same. Not good or bad, But there it is.

One of my closest friends is in the stage of her faith where she's falling in love with God. I hear her talking about how she's reading the Bible in a year for the first time, all of the things she's learning, what she's praying and thinking about, sharing with me the worship songs which have touched her heart. I love hearing her talk about these things, and it makes me miss the openness and wonder I used to have.

As I read Girl Meets God a couple of months ago, I came across this:

"I am not sure that I have the passion to fall in love with a religion again. How to fall in love is not, now, what I need to learn. What I need to learn, maybe what God wants me to learn, is the long grind after you've landed." 

As much as part of me wants to be back in that passionate love again, I read this quote and feel a resounding "yes... that is me."

Then, in the book written by her which I'm reading now, Still, she expresses how she had stopped praying as well.

"I can paint my walls with slogans about staying faithful to the spiritual disciplines, about formation and habits to carry you through, about how wonderful it is that we Episcopalians have this great incomparable liturgy that keeps us tethered to prayer when our own heart's awandering, but the simple truth is that when you don't know what you believe and you don't know where you are or you think you've been deluded or abandoned or you've glutted yourself with busyness and you are hiding from yourself or the day has just been too long - if that is who and how you are, prayer sounds like a barefoot hike from Asheville to Paris; it would be nice if you got there, you are sure there is a nice glass of wine and a nice slice of brie waiting for you at some cafe somewhere, but there is really no way you can imagine actually making the walk."

When I read the words of her books, I can imagine she and I being friends sitting down side by side, sharing our experiences and thoughts on faith. Neither of us truly having any answers or ways out of the rut we're in. But nodding our heads in agreement saying "yes, I know what you're talking about."

There's a certain camaraderie in simply understanding the questions and knowing someone else has gone through the same thing, even if they can't answer the questions. It is it's own special sort of comfort.

I'm not sure the purpose of writing all of this is. I think, I read about someone with whom I could relate when it came to this topic, and I wanted to share that "hey... this is me." Maybe someone else will be able to say the same thing.

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How Small Christian Universities Messed Up My View of Love and Marriage

Note: This post originally was originally published at: http://www.lovewokemeupthismorning.com/2012/01/how-small-christian-universities-messed.html on January 18, 2012.

Once, I came across a blog post via The Good Women Project. Then, as I tend to do with posts I like, I shared it on Facebook. Holy crap that started a discussion.

If you want, you can read the post here. It turns out, a lot of my single friends (and some of my married friends, actually) really resonated with this post. One of my friends who was part of the conversation added how she felt it was about letting God have control, singleness isn't the problem, and how God did bring her her husband but she would have been fine if he hadn't. She then asked me this question: "I think being at [the name of our university] warped our views on this topic? Where single = unhappy, married = unhappy? Your thoughts?"

The short answer?

YES!

The long answer?

When I was 13 I started to read The Christy Miller Series. Spoiler alert: in the end, Christy marries the guy she fell for when she was 14 just after she graduates college.

When I was in high school, I started going to a youth group where most of the leaders were college students who went to a conservative Christian university in the city. Most of them also dated each other and got married soon after graduating college.

I had friends from youth group who went away to a Christian college in another part of the country. They were there one year and got engaged at the age of 19. Apparently, so many people were getting engaged at this school it was becoming an "epidemic" and couples had to get approval from the university to get married.

At the end of the summer after my senior year of high school, and I was preparing to leave for a small, conservative, Lutheran university, I visited another youth group where some of my friends with. One girl told me: "Emily, I just know you are going to meet your husband in college."

I then go to college. As a naive, impressionable, Jesus-loving, 18 year old girl, I got one message pounded into my brain:

YOU ARE GOING TO MEET YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND AT FRESHMAN CAMP!!!!!!!!

This was written all over the sidewalks and on posters around campus. I'm not even joking. Freshman camp is the weekend before classes begin the fall semester. Granted, the Orientation, Transfer, and Camp staffs (O-staff, T-staff, and Camp Staff) all told us they wrote those things in jest. However... it kind of wasn't a joke.

Through the next four years I saw countless students dating each other freshman year and then getting a ring put on their finger by junior or senior year. Heck, when I was 18, I was in a play where one of my cast mates got married over Christmas break. We would always joke around about getting our MRS degree at graduation. My sophomore year I lived on a small floor filled where a majority of the girls were (A) engaged, (B) in a serious relationship, or (C) pregnant. 

The message that you had to get married to your college sweetheart because that's what good Christian girls do was loud and clear. 

So where would that leave the girls on campus, like myself, who always found themselves boy-friendless? My single friends and I had countless conversations about waiting for the right guy, how God has a plan, and learning how we need to "give our singleness to the Lord". Sometimes we even put on a very convincing facade that we were 100% okay with being single in a sea of engaged couples.

But it wasn't OK.

I just can't help but wonder why this is such a big trend in conservative Christian circles. Nothing is wrong with marrying young. Heck, I grew up in the Boy Meets World generation where Cory and Topanga were the ideal couple.

Looking back, I'm glad I never dated any of the guys I was interested in during my college years. Not that they weren't great guys, they were, and some I am still friends with. But I remember when I was 18 I thought that if I dated one of them that I would have to marry him. That's completely ridiculous. Why this pressure to marry right away? What if that's not God's plan for you? What if you never marry? What if you marry after the age of 25? (Yes - in some circles being 25 and single makes you an old maid.) Does this make you a "bad Christian?" Does this make you less of a person? Does it mean that married = happy, and single = unhappy? I don't think so. 

I also feel like most people would agree with me. 

So why this trend? I would love to hear your thoughts.

*Please note, that this is not a bash against Christy Miller, the youth leaders I had in high school, the university I attended, or people who marry young. Christy Miller is one of my all time favorite book series. My youth leaders helped me grow in my faith in so many ways. I had an awesome college experience. I have several close friends who married young and are amazing people whose friendships I would never want to loose. 

In The Beginning

When writing, beginnings are the actual worst. 

There's so much pressure on how you start things. You have to hook the reader in. Grab their attention. When you send pages of a manuscript to an agent or publisher, usually they have you send in the beginning of your work. The first chapter, or 5-10 pages, or something. If they don't like those first few pages it goes in the trash. 

Okay, I don't know if it actually goes in the literal trash. But you get the idea.

Beginnings are kind of a big deal.

A blank page, or in this case, screen, can be one of the most intimidating things in the world. I'm much more likely to procrastinate and focus on something else, anything else, when I have a blank page in front of me. If I have something there already, it's much easier for me to keep going. It's the getting started that gets me. 

For over a month now, I've had this page on SquareSpace all set up for me to fill it up with words and pictures. I had this idea of starting blogging again, but this time going from scratch. From the beginning. 

Part of me thought I should go back to my old blog. Everything was already started! The page was up. I had followers. (Well... some followers.) There were already posts there, I just had to go back to writing more of them.

But, I knew deep down starting over was what was needed. Something new, simple, and without other strings and obligations. No gimmicks, not selling anything, no niches, tags, or pressure. Just me and the page. 

I wondered if I should do it at all. I don't have advice to give about anything. I can't tell you how to get a job, how to make money, what to cook for dinner tonight, or how to craft something you can sell on etsy. All I have are my thoughts and random things going on in my life. Things that will probably bore everyone. 

I miss blogging though. I miss writing just for the sake of writing and clearing my head. A friend of mine from college has been blogging lately and I love hearing about her life and what's going on. It's awesome, I feel like she and I are closer now than we have been in awhile, and it made me realize how much I used to love sitting down on Xanga and later Blogger to talk about my day and the ideas going through my head without worrying about how many followers I had or if I would ever "make it" as a blogger. 

Not that I don't want people to read. Let's be honest. Obviously I want people to read or else I would just keep a diary. I have no idea if anyone is interested. I might not be transparent enough. I might be too transparent. Who knows. But, I want to write. 

The thing was, the beginning. 

I have tons of ideas and I have several saved drafts of what I want to write about. None of them fit the bill for the first post though. That gosh darn beginning. 

Yet, it has to be done.

So, here we are. 

The beginning. 

I feel like Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens should start singing "The Start of Something New" or I should quote the book of Genesis or something...