Prompt – What friendship meant then versus now.
Friendship for a Gen X military brat was never abstract. It was immediate, physical, and temporary. It lived on a base for a season. It was whoever arrived where I landed and stayed until the orders changed things. Closeness did not require history because the history was already baked into the coming and going. It required only shared space and a shared understanding that the now mattered.
Moves arrived without negotiation. One day there were no boxes, and the next day there were boxes. No one framed it as loss. It was logistics. Adults talked about duty and opportunity while kids learned how to say goodbye without ceremony. Grief did not get named or recognized, so it learned how to hide. It was hella efficient.
That efficiency shaped all parts of life including friendship. I learned how to read people and rooms quickly. I learned which parts of myself to lead with and which parts to keep packed. I learned how to belong without attaching too deeply because attachment always came with a cost that would be collected later. Leaving did not mean the friendship was not real. It only meant it had run its course.
There was a raw honesty in those friendships. There was no time for slow reveals or performative closeness. We went deep because the clock was already ticking. Loyalty was not measured in years. It was measured in moments by who stood next to me right then, and who kept my secrets when it mattered.
Years later, Japan reinforced that lesson in a quieter way. Friendship there came with an expiration date written directly into the contract. One year, sometimes two. The system itself discouraged permanence, as if rotation could prevent attachment from taking root. It felt almost sacred, like impermanence was a value worth protecting. I understood the rule. I broke it anyway.
In Japan, friendship was full and immediate. We did life together knowing it would end. There was no pretending otherwise. That honesty made the closeness sharper. We shared meals, mistakes, and small triumphs without the illusion of forever. When the goodbyes came, they were clean, even when they hurt like hell. The ending did not erase what had been real. Then time moved on, and the rules of friendship shifted again.
Adult friendship now is persistent and networked. It lives in texts, threads, and long digital echoes. Distance no longer explains disappearance. Silence gets interpreted. Absence becomes personal. Continuity is expected, even when life makes that continuity hard.
For someone raised where friendship ended cleanly at the base gate, this can feel disorienting. The instinct to give space can read as withdrawal. The habit of packing light can look like detachment. What once kept me steady can now feel out of step. And yet, something endures.
That upbringing left behind a particular strength. The ability to go deep without guarantees. The capacity to choose people deliberately rather than by convenience. A sensitivity to character, to kindness, to how someone treats power and vulnerability. There are fewer friendships now, perhaps, but the ones that remain carry real weight.
There is also a fluency in difference. I learned how to translate myself across places, cultures, and expectations. I learned that belonging is not automatic, but it is possible. That skill does not disappear. It matures. What can look like guardedness is often discernment. What can look like distance is often respect for the truth that closeness should be intentional. Friendship was never something I assumed would last forever. It was something I honored while it was true.
And maybe that is the quiet gift. Knowing that connection does not require permanence to be real. Knowing that love can be fierce and temporary and still shape a life. Knowing that when I choose to stay now, it is not because I have to. It is because I mean it.
Muddled Soma 