SO, I was thinking about Spinel, and how the whole ‘being left alone for 6000 years’ thing is really awful but also played off as a joke (“Only six thousand years! It’s true, that’s nothing!” - YD), which I don’t think is unfair - for gems, thousands of years really IS nothing. But somehow knowing that doesn’t make it feel any less tragic for Spinel. 

What I think is most cruel about what Pink does to Spinel is the fact that not only does she leave, but she tricks Spinel into doing NOTHING but wait. Because Spinel isn’t just any gem - she’s a gem designed to be your best friend. To joke, play, have fun with. Being with someone is her purpose; entertaining someone is her function.

They say time flies when you’re having fun. But if you’re a gem designed to be fun, and to have fun, and you can’t do either of those things, only be still and wait around all by yourself for 6000 years… I imagine that would feel like A Really Fucking Long Time. It’d be like telling a young kid to wait for half an hour, and to them it feels like forever. And, personally, I think the fact she emphasizes the passage of time in Drift Away so much lends to the idea that being alone for so long wasn’t nothing, actually.