On “How Do I Do This,” Kelsea Ballerini is all nervous energy about going out on a date after so many years spent knowing and eventually being married to one person. And who wouldn’t have jitters, what if they ask about the elephant in the room?
“They say to get out with the old you get in with the new / And I haven’t been on a date since I was twenty-two,” she sings about her desire to date and the fear that makes her reluctant to put her heart out there again. Ballerini makes her storytelling skills come alive with this song, as she touches on all the little thoughts that can plague one when something like a first date is approaching. Should she drink before the date, should she lean out when he leans in, what kinds of questions is she expected to answer on a date like that, and more are the things that run up and down her head as 8 o’clock nears. I think the song will be very relatable to many, and I don’t mean just to those who are getting back into the dating game after being married for a while. Its message, while being direct in a way, actually covers a broad range of emotions. And one line struck a deep chord, “Everything I knew about love is ruined, it’s so confusing / So, how do, how do I do this?”
“How Do I Do This” is a song that appears in her EP Rolling Out The Welcome Mat (For Good) – a follow-up to her very successful Rolling Out The Welcome Mat.
“The only way I’ve been able to handle my life since I was 12 was to write about it. Ironically, I started writing music because my parents got divorced; that was my therapy,” she wrote in a statement.
“These are six songs I wish I had last year. It’s about the complexities of the feelings you go through during a massive shift at a young age,” she said of the project. “Rolling Up the Welcome Mat was how I processed everything. It’s the way I got my feelings out of my body and heart and put them to music — which is the purest way I could’ve handled it.”
The song is a description of an experience she recently lived, as the past few months have been an unraveling one for her. It was a time she revealed made her readjust her views on love and learn to move on and put her dreams first.
