Ellie Di Julio's Blog

State of the Ellie: July 2018

Jubilant July to you all! It’s that time again: Here’s everything you wanted to know about my past month but were too afraid (or or busy) to ask.

Body: Everything here is holding steady, which is both good and bad. Good because I’m still at the gym, getting stronger and less creaky, and I haven’t broken anything. Bad because I’m still struggling with persistent mystery illness. I’m surprisingly fine with how working out is going. Old demons of body dysmorphia haven’t resurfaced (or when they...

Noticing.Forty

I’m pretty sure God woke her up at 4:30am purposely to address my whiny attitude about losing my precious morning time for the past week. Sickness and exhaustion have had me sleeping late, but today she’s up for an hour muttering and half crying, so I’m dressed at 5:30–my usual alarm time. #sneakyjesus Frivolous things are only a waste if they bring you no joy. I spend my hard-won time of stillness doing impractical, unimportant stuff. I need to play a little. Current needs: love, respect, b...

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Jesus Christ

She passed me her phone with a smirk, asking, “How old do you think I am here?”

It sounded like a dare. I looked at the formal headshot, scrutinizing it for details. Same gorgeous hair, same glowing skin, same shining eyes. It was taken last week as far as I could tell. “Twenty-five?” I guessed.

She shook her head and laughed. “Sixteen.”

My eyes widened as they bounced between her nearly-thirty face and the photo, unable to tell the difference. “How…?” I stammered.

She laughed again and shrug...

Noticing.Thirty-Nine

Eight and a half hours. I spend an hour copying a prayer into my journal. I’ve never liked rote prayers, but this one isn’t like any liturgy I’ve heard before. Even in the silence of writing it out, my spirit shivers and wakes. She brings Baby Groot to the car and stops to show him the roses on the way and they both take a hearty sniff. Later on, she shows him the toy bin on the front porch. Still later, she shows him her night-night book. I’m weirdly proud of her. I have a minor administrat...

Noticing.Thirty-Eight

There is a perfect reflection of the curtains on the surface of my coffee. A monochrome lithograph in cream and light. I have a weird need to explain to my journal where I’ve been if it’s more than a couple days since I last wrote in it. This is either a mark of how truly I treat this practice as a conversation with God or it’s a holdover from my middle-school diary. She’s literally been sick for two months. Two ear infections, then hand, foot, and mouth, and now titanic poops with a mystery...

A fixed point

I’ve spent an unusual amount of my life in introspection—wondering who I am, what I’m for, and how I can be better.

The problem is that the deeper you go down that rabbit hole, the darker it can get.

For me, perfectionism combined with the fear of disappointing others to form a mental acid that quietly eroded my sense of self. It ate away the lights on the staircase as I walked down into my own depths, then eventually erased the stairs themselves. The harder I looked, the less I saw, and the...

Noticing.Thirty-Seven

I forget it’s our anniversary until two hours after I’ve kissed him goodbye on his way out the door for work. Either he did, too, or he’s a saint for not saying anything. Sickness but not sickness. Again. I wonder about ways to address this constant dis-ease other than medicine and doctors. Where is the root? What is the name of the spirit? I taste the melancholy of the final day of high school in the air at the early years center. Watching people leave, knowing I won’t see them again after...

Nine years married

Confession: I very nearly forgot our anniversary today. Sentimental celebrations aren’t my strong suit, but you’d think this one would stick, particularly after how hard we’ve had to fight to make it this far.

Nine years married.

The number 9 marks the end of a cycle–it’s as high up as you can go without starting a new set. It’s a pinnacle, a tipping point, the home stretch. We made it.

What’s ahead of us is 10, the number of divine perfection. Which seems like a lot to ask from any human, bu...

Noticing.Thirty-Six

40K Saturday + Father’s Day Sunday = Lost Weekend Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, for in You do I trust; Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my soul to You. (Ps 143:8-10) Two years in and it’s still shocking how much power her sleep (or lack thereof) has over my life. She wakes up at 5am and I’m furious. I go in and she screams at me because she’s tired. I pick her up and she lays on me in the chair. I’m thinking about things I want to be doing...

Noticing.Thirty-Five

Trying to remember a great idea you have while you’re busy is exactly like trying not to pee your pants while looking for a bathroom. Today in unexpected expenses: a printer. The level of disappointment I feel in my price-matching app’s decision to discontinue coupons is only exceeded by the disappointment of my inner child in what a colossal bore I’ve become. Podcast fast over. No major revelations, but sometimes the point is just going where you’re being led. I’m good with that. (And now h...