The rain, it keeps on coming. My roomies and I, we wear sweaters and cover our windows with shrinkwrap to keep the drafts out, and some of us (by which I mean me) eat too much pasta and other starchy things to keep the damp and the cold at bay.

I sit at the desk in my little sitting room and occasionally I do grown-up things like sort through receipts and study the Learners License manual so I can eventually, finally learn how to drive. More often when I'm in here I'm checking my email, or the inevitable Facebook, but there has been some progress. I have been practicing my music. Multiple times. Writing songs, even. This week, I will perform my first-EVER solo set (all my own songs, at that) at a friend's open-mic night in this new neighbourhood of mine. I can't believe I'll be doing that. It's gonna feel as though I'm naked. In front of people.

So yeah, you DO get more stuff done when you're not in a relationship. Or I do, anyway. I guess I'm going to have to learn how to make time for both, or at least I certainly hope so, eventually. But this is okay for now, it really is.

I biked to my ex's, in the teeth of a ferocious windstorm yesterday. And I looked around at the apartment we had shared for so many years, which he had totally repainted and redecorated, and I didn't feel one pang of regret or nostalgia. We sat and drank coffee together, he and I, and he said I want to tell you something, so it's not awkward later on. I'm seeing someone. And I smiled, and congratulated him, and I was really pleased for him, and still there was no regret, and only a bit of nostalgia when we hugged goodbye.

Today I looked at myself in the mirror and said: This will not do. So I got myself to the drugstore, handily located next door, and spent some time in one of the aisles, and now my hair is a lovely dark reddish brown, with not a bit of grey. I had 2 music rehearsals with various people whom I adore and then I came home and played some more music by myself and I had several messages from more people I adore and one of them (one of the most adored, although he doesn't know it) said: How's life treating you? And I realized that it was treating me very, very well indeed. And then I finished this song:

I WAS HERE

I was here, or haven't you heard
I'm leaving a trail with the written word
and I'm taking a stand, yeah I'm raising my voice
it doesn't feel as if I even have a choice
I write my name in the sand, though the tide washes it clean
so I don't even know if it was ever seen
Just a trace of my bones against these stones
saying I Was Here.

This is me, I'm making my mark
I'm holding this pen like a candle in the dark
saying This is how I felt, and this is what I did
This is when I was brave, and this is why I hid
I said goodbye to my old life and went towards the new
I went and fell in love again 'cause that's just what I do
with my heart and my hope on my sleeve
saying I Was Here

Sometimes I'm clumsy, sometimes I forget
Sometimes I just spill it all, say things I might regret
It's not always easy to say how I feel
Don't know when I should close my mouth or what I should reveal

I was here, but after I'm gone
who knows if anything of me will linger on
All my mistakes, all the things I did right
will vanish like a shadow when it meets the night
I'll say goodbye to my old life and head towards the new
I hope that when I die I've done the things I wanted to
But wherever I go I'll let them know-
I'll tell them I Was Here.