Once upon a time, not too long ago, I was one of many people very excited for Destiny 1. There was an aura of mystery around Destiny, promising epic stories; a new shooter from the creators of Halo without all the baggage of that series was also reason enough to be excited. There were two preview periods, an alpha and a beta, and I played a fair amount of both. I remember those periods as the time when public opinion started to shift from "I can't wait for this" to "Is this all there is? Really?" I understood the concerns and, honestly, shared them to a degree, but was also perfectly happy with a loot-grindy shooter that felt as good as those alpha and beta periods did. I even actually liked Peter Dinklage - uninspired delivery and goofy-ass lines about moon wizards included. I wanted nothing more than to give the completed Destiny a fair shake.

I don't think I ever played "the completed Destiny." Of course, I downloaded Destiny 1 on release day in September of 2014 and played semi-regularly for a few weeks. What pushed me away was not the game itself, although the third time playing through the content from the early access periods made the game's shortcoming abundantly clear. My problem with Destiny centered around that fact that even when running "single player" content, you couldn't truly pause the game. You could go to a menu screen, but things would continue happening in the world around you. You could hope to find a quiet place with no enemies, but there was risk that they would respawn or idling in the world would reset some counter or timer. I understand connected games and games with significant online portions as games as a service, but I couldn't play a game this way.

Since my freshman year of college, I had dealt with ulcerative colitis. If you're not familiar with UC, it's an idiopathic, inflammatory disease of the large intestine. Crohn's disease is essentially the same thing, but located in the small intestine; the two are frequently bundled together. For example, The Crohn's and Colitits Foundation is the biggest education, support, and advocacy group for those with either or both diseases. MY course of UC was classified as "moderate," but was stubborn in that it would respond to a medicine for a period of time, then stop. My doctor and I would then have to try something else which either wouldn't work at all or would work for a short period of time, then stop. Repeating this cycle for 15 years, along with a disease that makes it harder to absorb nutrients from food can leave you very tired, but I had adapted and learned to live with the condition and manage it. One part of that was always knowing where a restroom was and how to get there quickly, as one of the symptoms was the need to use the restroom frequently and very urgently. This was unpleasant, but again, manageable with some planning and lifestyle changes. For example - I saw 99% of movies at home and seeing something in the theatre meant it was SUPER important to me to see it on the big screen and at the time of release. By now, I think you can see my problem with Destiny - I couldn't commit to a strike or even a story mission without the possibility I'd have to bail out (and I mean HAVE to bail out) at an inopportune time which would lead to my death.

So I played a bit of Destiny. I stopped because I couldn't commit to it physically, and I've always wondered how I would have reacted to The Taken King. I would have loved to have found a group to raid with. I wish I could have heard ALL of Dinkle-bot's lines before he was excised from memory.

Fast forward to September of 2017, and I'm eagerly waiting for a countdown timer to tick down to 0 and fire up Destiny 2. Why would I do this to myself? For all the talk of what's improved from the final incarnation of Destiny 1 to Destiny 2 - never mind from vanilla Destiny which was my experience - I know the nature of the persistent, online, active world hasn't changed. Fortunately what's changed is my own situation. Almost a year ago, after moving across the country and seeing a new doctor, he said the words I had dreaded for 15 years: "Nothing is working and you need to seriously consider surgery." So in September of 2016, I had the one "cure" for UC in the form of two operations to remove the diseased organ and then reconnect my digestive system. It was a difficult 3 or so months, but I had awesome medical care and supportive family who could come spend time with me and aid in recovery.

The results have been truly life-altering: I saw Rogue One - in theaters. Twice. I've seen other movies, too - I can go see any one I want. And I can play a game like Destiny 2 without the dread that I'll have to abandon my character or my team to an uncertain fate. And with all that taken care of, I'm having a truly fun time with Destiny 2. There's a story I can appreciate even if I don't have the same deep connection that Destiny 1 players had to The Last City. The shooting feels good and varied by weapon, and my insatiable loot lust loves seeing new weapons and gear pop into my inventory pretty frequently. I'm looking forward to doing more public events, teaming up with my clan for strikes and Nightfalls (Is that a thing people say? "Doing the Nighfall?" I'm really a Destiny noob.) and eventually Raids. I'm glad Destiny has evolved as a franchise over the past three years. I'm more glad I'll get to grow along with it from this point forward.