As the big sign on the wall says you can’t buy happiness however much you want to. I guess you can choose where you find it!

Choice number one this morning ride or walk into the city.

I walked. I decided no rush so just take a stroll and it’s much easier to park my bum somewhere and remember where I left it!

I have a few hours to kill before Rebecca arrives and the walk was a nice way to waste some time.

But I’m restless.

After a week of feeling I’d really nailed this ‘friends with your ex’ thing today is a less nailed day.

Why? Who knows to be honest. Well I’ll take a good guess knowing me pretty well – I wish he was here. I’d pay for that happiness the curiosity he brings that just makes you see the world with a completely fresh pair of eyes and the random facts he shares about anything and everything that stick in your head like a nursery rhyme, comforting, a happy place.

I think its time on my own I mean really on my own, no Will, no anybody just me choosing. It’s a weird feeling for me. Left or right, Cafe or Coffeeshop, walk or ride.

When I’m making decisions just for me I find it so hard. I’m not thinking what would William like or what would suit everyone, what’s the compromise? I just have to think for me. Who am I trying to make happy? Oh me!

Now this should be freeing right I’m in Amsterdam for gods sake! The thing is I really struggle to really enjoy something if I can’t share it (the irony of me writing this rather than just sitting in my own company is not lost on me). As if I have to tell someone for it to be real or in my case text a picture for a reaction – yes Jane it is pretty! Really can I not get that all by my self.

The ‘friends with your ex’ thing gets tricky because my default is to text him, share something he would find funny. Something that reminds me of something that was ours. I’m not over that yet but I’m aware I shouldn’t, well not as much as I want to.

So rather than wandering I have found a cafe (the coffeeshop option seemed like an option that would lead to a much higher chance of inappropriate sharing, I’ve been up since 3am and I seriously needed to pee) it’s right by the canal buzzy but not so busy you feel you need to rush and the perfect spot to write.

Soon Rebecca will be here to save me from myself. I will have a fellow explorer, someones opinion to consider, much better.

For now it’s me. Painfully choosing to walk and not ride. To take it all in, feel the emotions rise up from the pit of my stomach then swallow them down with another sip of coffee.

Just breathing in a different city with different air (mostly filled with weed) and smiling to myself at just how good it is just to write this stuff down, put it out there and let it go. Which will of course will last another 30 minutes or so before I start to think about sourcing the perfect gift for Will to represent this place, but until then it’s coffee, a canal and me.