Is Blood Thicker Than Water?

What constitutes family?  Is it blood lines and genealogy, or is it heart and soul?  Are we bound by a shared heritage, or do we create our own bonds.  What is the primal instinct and need we have to connect with our lineage? Are we flawed if we fail to make that connection and alternatively create stronger connections with friends?

Various religious studies and doctrines teach that family is an eternal bond.  But the question still remains what is family?  Is the adopted child family? Is the eternal bond with his birth parents,  those of his true blood line, or with his adoptive parents?  If it's with his adoptive parents then the path to choice is open for the rest of us.  If the adoptive child is bound to the family who selected him or her, then we too have the option of being selected or selecting the connections we call family?  Right?

Is a wife bound to her husband even though they don't share a blood tie (unless they come from deliverance backwoods, lol) or to the her blood family?  If she is bound to her husband then her bloodline is fractured and splintered. Alternately, if she is bound to her bloodline, then what becomes of the children she and her husband share?

The complexity of family being strictly defined by blood being thicker than water, makes my head hurt.  I think the truth is, that family is where the heart is, just as home is where the heart is.

If we spend our lives banging our heads against a wall trying to make connections with family on a one way street, then we will only come out of it with a giant knot in the middle of our head and really bad headache.  Sometimes we share a great deal in common with our traditionally defined families, and sometimes we don't.  Sometimes the differences we have bring balance and diversity and help us expand our points of view. But sometimes, and its just the luck of the draw, sometimes... the differences divide us irreparably and the pain and struggle of  forcing a fit, becomes more emotionally destructive than helpful.

I am one of six children. The baby girl and 5th in line.  Over the years I have worked to nurture and foster communications with each of my siblings.  Some are more successful than others, and some are stronger and more promising.   I haven't given up, but I have accepted that some may never produce the fruit and joy that others do.  We are all unique and different and our viewpoints on life, and our own personal experiences with childhood and beyond have shaped us. No one of us is better than the next, we are just, in some cases, too different.

I spent this weekend with some phenomenal women who I consider sisters to my heart.  They make me laugh and they make me smile, and they embrace and encourage the silly in me.  I am relaxed and content to be simply me when I am with them.  They represent not just friends to me but family by choice.  Sometimes our souls are drawn to others, as if we knew them before we were brought into this life.  And sometimes those connections are so strong and so powerful that they become family.  Sometimes we truly are Saturdays child.

I will never discount the value of traditional family bonds, but I do believe that some of the bonds we create through choice can be just as powerful.  Is blood thicker than water?  Perhaps.  But so is nectar, sweet and satisfying, and I think that's what friendships ooze. :)

I value each member of my family, even those with which communications are broken, but I value just as greatly the friendships I have forged  to last a lifetime.