It's happening again.

So, it's happening again.

Friends with whom cannot live without (slightly dramatic interpretation of future events necessitated by looming despair) have begun to moan about Prague and talking about all the places they'd rather be and where they're going next etc. It's the moaning about Prague that maybe peeves the most. I still feel, after more than two and a half years, that I'm lucky to be here, that I'm happy with my life (less than ideal financial situation notwithstanding), and that I am both too tired and too satisfied to want to wander on somewhere else. Besides, hello. Prague.

How much do you really have to complain about? Really? We could be back home stuck in a dead end or we could be here forging names and lives of our own for ourselves. Even at my poorest and lowest, I'll take the latter.

In the past the offenders of this grievous Crime Against Me have included some of my best friends (Tandrew). I bore it all as best I could at the time, choosing to smile through my gritted teeth instead of unleashing some probably unfair rage in their direction. And of course, when they left, it sucked and a big piece of my Prague heart went with them, and in the weeks after their departure I started doubting myself. I asked questions like, if they want to leave so badly, shouldn't I? Aren't I in more or less the same situation as them? Same age, same kinda jobs, same or similar problems? It took a while of an ugly funk before I began to grow indignant with myself for asking stupid questions. I am happy, I am content, and just because those closest to me sometimes aren't, doesn't mean I need to feel the same way. Why should I care what dictates the paths other people take?

I don't care. But unfortunately I have this obnoxious personality trait that when others who are close to me are experiencing extreme moods, I seem to soak them up and they become my own. Tara knows every day she came home pissed, I would soon be pissed as well. Once she tried to hide that she was pissed so I wouldn't be pissed residually. It didn't work.

So I promised myself that if it started to happen again, I would speak up and say something, and then otherwise be a good friend and normal person who could listen to friends' problems without taking them on myself or being pissed at them for having them.

Cut to present day, where the latest offender of the Paul-John's Hate Crimes Act is none other than essential, life-enriching besty Shannon. At first I actively participated in Shannon's ideas and plans about leaving, since she was saying it would be more than a year away and wish to be good, supportive friend. Slowly it became a topic which has appeared every time we see each other. And I guess last night I was too tired and beer-loosened, and I had to open my mouth and say something.

Was probably more curt than was necessary, but feel I explained self reasonably, and in true Shannon form (thankfully for me) her response was more 'Got it. Cool. Slow down with the moving talk' than 'How DARE you?' But it was essential manoeuvre of self-defense! If not, was about to be mired deep down in stress and angst which do not need. And I wasn't wearing my bullshit-wading boots.

Then of course I felt bad for shutting her down, and she probably was terrified of me, like the time she said 'you would like this song' and I replied 'Fuck you.' Come to think of it, she must have been, because not twenty minutes later she was like, 'Sooo, are you mad at me, for anything right now, orrr...?' Was glad that she asked because if being perfectly honest about it did look sort of pissed, but only owing to fatigue.

Spent the day, much against my New Year's Resolution, in bed-swaddled funk. Then as I was enjoying the brisk coldness of the balcony, one of Shannon's road trip songs (Can't Go Back, by the Weepies) from the Croatia trip came on my iPod. Some of the lyrics struck me as poignant and befitting my mood:

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else

But in the end the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself

So Shannon, me and you walk on, walk on, walk on, cos you can't go back now.

And in future, will try to be more gracious in social situations featuring conversations which do not want to hear: