Nobody puts baillee in the corner

99% of the time I help others. I have helped people move countless apartments. I have been the crying shoulder and voice of reason. Heck, I’ve even made many a Halloween costume. Today, I’m helping someone I often neglect: myself. I’ve been in a hole for a couple of months now, and I’m ready for Clarice Starling to help me get out.

Before I start, I want to make something abundantly clear. This isn’t meant to upset anyone or cause any harm, and if it comes across that way, I can earnestly tell you it isn’t my intention; I just haven’t allowed myself to sit down and process everything that’s happened the past few months, and the time has finally come. There’s no Mekhi Phifer. This is my life and these times are hard.

There are a lot of things in the life and over the past few months I will whole-heartedly apologize for, including the Roxy mini skirt I wore for most of 2007 and saying “what the deuce?” throughout all of my high school career. I will apologize for some spouts of immaturity. I will apologize to anyone I hurt, be it intentionally or unintentionally. I will apologize for ignoring problems instead of facing them head on. I will apologize for being emotionally distant and not saying somethings I should have. I will even apologize for all the texts I didn’t return for days and the messages I left neglected. All of those things, I will genuinely apologize for. However, there is also a string of things I will not apologize for.

I will not apologize for having to take some time for myself when my anxiety and depression were so bad I couldn’t leave my house. I will not apologize for expressing myself or my feelings anytime I have. I will not apologize for distancing myself when the situation called for it. I will not apologize for dwelling on some things and moving on quickly from others. I will not apologize for initiating some difficult conversations and relying on people to initiate others. I will not apologize for those things.

You see, I am Baillee MaCloud Perkins. That’s the only person I know how to be. I am the girl who laughs to loud.
The girl who smokes too many Marlboro lights.
The girl who drinks too much Lone Star.
The girl who not only laughs at jokes but who shoots back something just as clever.
The girl who thrives in Doc Martins and denim shorts.
The girl who talks too much.
The girl who listens to her music too loud.
The girl who writes blog posts to get over things.

Unfortunately, I’m also Baillee MaCloud Perkins, and that’s also the only person I know how to be.
The girl who needs reassurance.
The girl with a volcanic temper when she’s pushed too far.
The girl who passive aggressively uses thumbs up emojis
The girl who falls too hard.
The girl who worries too much
The girl who apologizes too much.
The girl who is sometimes too sensitive for her own good.
The girl who has to remove herself from some narratives for her own peace of mind.

And as of late, the girl whose emotions have been running wild because she’s been trying to reign them in for so long (and I have no idea when I became one of the girls from The Saddle Club). The girl who is trying to pick up the pieces that have been shattered so many times from so many different people, but as soon as she almost has everything put back together, the horse from the other analogy comes barging in (drunken BoJack Horseman style) and smashes all of the pieces again, so it takes twice as long for her to reassemble things. Right now, I’m the girl that is barely holding it together but is cleverly doing so with a grin on her face and eyeliner ever-so pointed on her eyelids. Most importantly, I’m the girl who feels significantly better after unloading onto a social media platform.

This blog post took me ages to write because I kept added and subtracting parts of the equation, but my answer still wasn’t one of the options (much like me in honors Geometry when I wore the aforementioned skirt and whispered “what the deuce?” to the available answers on the quiz). It took me this long to figure out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. Nothing felt right, and subsequently, nothing sounded write (see what I did there?). Eventually, it all clicked, so I spliced some tidbits from my phone and various notebooks to create a Cronenberg-esque amalgamation of what I wanted to say. I have to put a pen to paper to express myself because that’s who I am, and that’s all I can be. I’m just a girl. Standing before you. With a blog that I forcibly make all my friends read. Because I can’t afford therapy.