Nobody puts baillee in the corner

(Not my best title but not my worst.)

Hello Dear Readers, 

I know it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written anything, but it’s because I haven’t felt the need to. However, I’ve recently found myself in a good ol’ fashioned rut (cue the 90s audience “aww” soundboard clip), and I’m thinking the only way out of it is by doing what I do best: putting a pen to paper (or a finger to keyboard) and to stop harboring everything before the colonists try to pour tea on me as an act of rebellion. I’ve been telling a lot of you I’ve just had some stuff going on, or in true Baillee fashion, cracking jokes, but it’s time to Come Clean, Hilary Duff style. 

For those who don’t know (and I fear will look at me like an extra from Girl, Interrupted after this blog post), I have clinical depression and anxiety. I’ve struggled with them for years, and I take medication. It usually doesn’t get this bad, but occasionally, it does. It’s a part of me I can’t shake, but you have to take the depression with the Kendrick lip syncs and wordplay. For those who already knew, you understand how I get when I struggle with them. I withdraw. I actively push away or quasi-ignore the ones I care about the most. I listen to a lot of Avril Lavigne. I also tend to overthink and overanalyze everything, and that’s currently where I’m finding myself. That’s why, dear readers, aka the two people I am texting this post to for feedback, I’m going to share some things with you. 

I’ve been in this, what I affectionately call, “funk” for several weeks now, and in layman’s terms, it sucks. I’ve tried darting feelings, drinking tequilia (and openly rapping Childish Gambino as a result, to boot), and everything in-between, including meditation, which usually results in me falling asleep and napping for 20 minutes. Nothing has seemed to work, but thanks to my understanding, chip-loving boss, I’ve taken one final mental health day to dust off my handy notebook and $.99 trusty black pen to let everything out. 

To paraphrase a wise friend of mine (love you, Mare), you can’t save others from drowning when there’s a hole in your own life raft. Think of this blog post as the patch you almost always throw away because if you’re me, you thought it was directions on a weird Post-It. This is me as Cady Heron sucking the poison out. This is me as Cher Horowitz signing up to help Ms. Geist with the Pismo Beach Disaster Relief. This is me as Baillee MaCloud Perkins writing a blog post to get out of a funk. 

I don’t really know where to start, so I’m going to start with the heavy stuff. I’ve written about my dad before, but the Cliffs Notes version is I’ve only had a good dad for about five years. The irony is he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about a year ago, and it’s reached his frontal lobe, meaning it’s going to progress more rapidly than we were expecting. It didn’t really hit me until I started receiving nonsensical texts from him or how during some of our phone conversations recently he would forget my dog’s name or what we were talking about entirely. In a similar vein, I’ve been missing my grandfather, who was a major paternal influence in my life. I had to watch his genius mind succumb to Parkinson’s, and I’m having to watch an identical thing happen to my father. 

Secondly, I’ve had some financial problems. I’ve never been good with money, and I’ve never claimed to be. Fortunately for me, I have a bitchin’ credit score (and I’m actually 47 years old), so I’ve been able to take out some loans and get everything cleared up. I can’t express how thankful I am to everyone who has helped me with small things like a pack of cigarettes to big-time, if you were a loan shark, I wouldn’t have pinkies left, types of contributions. I’ve had some close calls, and I appreciate everything all of you have done. The crazy thing is money isn’t even my current biggest stressor, but it’s definitely worth an honorable mention. 

Finally, the piece de resistance: the feelings. We have some old feelings (thanks tequilia) that have subsided but still haunt me like ghosts of boys pasts (the follow up to that Matthew McConaughey movie no one asked for), new feelings (which are between me, the universe, and someone I owe an entire Esty shop to) that I am terrified of self-sabotaging for some crazy, bogus reason, and the feeling of letting my friends down because I try to have some semblance of stability for them, and I feel my foundation is cracking a bit (in both the metaphorical and literal sense because my makeup game is weak). Don’t worry though. I’m not letting this end how you expect. 

This doesn’t end with me wallowing in self-destructive tendencies. This doesn’t end with me crawling back into bed and sleeping my problems away. This doesn’t end with me drinking the bourbon I bought last night on a whim (even though it does taste like a Sonic Vanilla Dr. Pepper, I must say). This ends with me trying. 

This one ends with me trying to realize I don’t have to be perfect all the time. This one ends with me trying to understand I have the best and largest support system a girl could ask for. This one ends with me trying to trust my gut feelings about things and letting chips fall where they may instead of worrying about them incessently.This one ends with me trying to not push people away out of fear of judgement and the dreaded what-ifs. This one ends with me simply trying, and that’s the best thing I can promise right now. I can’t promise it will be all sunshine and rainbows. I can’t promise I’ll be better in the morning. But I can promise you this: I will try my absolute hardest to always be the person all of you have come to know, love, and most importantly, deserve. 

Plus, I’m getting new seasons of Curb Your Enthusiam and BoJack Horseman, so I can’t get too melancholy, right?