D3 Crashout - Forgotten Island and Reflections on Friendship

If not self evidence, I have been having some issues with friends lately. Not in the some dramatic exit way, nor is it in the "I hate these people forever", but in the slow "these people aren't who I need right now" And that especially hurts because I grew up on loyalty. To a team, to a brotherhood, to a family. I still believe in this loyalty firmly. But loyalty doesn't mean infinite access to my life, yet I hold myself and my friends to some arbitrary standard of closeness which I define as what friendship is supposed to be. As I age, I am unsure where the origins of that idea even began. You don't need to know someone for 14 years for them to be your best friend. And you don't need to see someone everyday to remain close to them. I have had friendships I thought were going to be forever end officially over summer breaks. I have taken friends for granted. I have taken my impacts on others for granted, expecting unlimited patience as we would always be cool. That's probably what some of my friends thought of me as well. It is the unspoken idea that will all grow up someday. But we don't really consider that we may be on different timelines, on different trajectories, in different environments. And whether we realize it or not, those things change us, and suddenly the people you thought you'd have forever with start to feel like something you'd rather forget. My friends are great. They have been there for me more times than I can count, and I hope I've done the same. But the time and the space that distance has brought us has made me realize the things I want, and the time that I have, is not always spent in the ways I wish. That doesn't make my friends any less valuable, it is mostly on me for picking a time and a place. As always, enjoy.