Last week I spent about two hours trying to clean the kitchen and organize the mess that Christmas left. Good music and the urge to dance in kitchen kept distracting me. The beer helped.

Singing with Norah Jones and Dido at the top of my lungs took me back to the days that I actually listened to Norah Jones and Dido. Back to when I listened to what moved me and when I did more of what made me happy.

Back when I was more….me.

The memories flooded in. I thought of the first house I owned. The little hard-wood floored house, in a neighborhood that could be considered a little scary, with it’s drafty but cozy rooms. I loved that house. It represented my independence. It represented me making it on my own. It stood for so much. It was where I really bloomed. It was where I found myself.

It’s where I found:

My pride.

The decor I loved.

Solitude.

My space.

Heartbreak.

A new job.

A new team.

New friends.

A new world.

The path to confidence.

Independence.

How to be alone.

Dating again.

Disappointment.

New music.

How to deal with loneliness.

How to deal with loss.

My Macie.

Joy.

Contentment.

Wine.

Chinese Food for one.

Sex and the City. (I heart you, Carrie Bradshaw.)

It’s where I learned to dance to my own music. When did I stop listening to Norah Jones? When did I stop dancing around the house? When did I stop listening to myself?

When I merged my life with someone else’s life.

When “I” became a “we.”

I love my life now. I love my little family and what we have built.

I also love that other time in my life. When I was just me. The thing is, I love it more now than I did back then. Back then, I was biding my time. I didn’t know enough about life to love it like I SHOULD HAVE. Back then, I was waiting for life to start. Because I thought life as a “we” would be better than life as just “me.” (See what I did there? I made a little rhyme.)

They say that youth is wasted on the young. It’s true. Little did I know that the life I was living in my 20’s WAS the life I was SUPPOSED to be living. That was a really good life, and I wish I would have just calmed the eff down and LIVED it instead of worrying that I would never find someone. I thought I needed someone to come along to make life better. I wasted a lot of time thinking life on my own wasn’t quite enough. I really wish that I had not had the mistaken mindset that I HAD to find someone. Because that’s just bullshit.

(I’m also a very pissed that society puts that pressure on women and makes them feel like they HAVE to get married. Because…THEY DON’T. But that’s a post for another time. And believe me, I have some things to say about that.)

I wish I could tell my twenty-something self to chill out.

Now that I have this life, the one I spent years pining for, I realize I have lost some of myself. I have let go of the girl that listened to Norah Jones and Dido and other music that moves me. I stopped finding new artists and new outlets. I stopped being creative. I stopped spending time with myself.

I spent all of those years waiting for what I have now. Now that I have what I spent those years wanting, I’m asking myself, how did I get here, anyway?

I have what I wanted, yet in getting here, I have lost a very important part of me. And that’s my fault.

I surrendered to being what I thought I should be, not what I wanted to be. I succumbed to getting by and just getting through what life threw at me, instead of creating my own life.

That’s all changing, though. Norah and Dido lit that spark that’s been buried deep down inside. I’m going to find that girl, my former self, and dust her off and bring her with me into 2016. I have a lot to teach her and she has a lot she needs to do.

New Year’s is for new beginnings, and this is the year I get me back.