Blood, is a messy matter. Blood can stain everything it touches; leaving testimony to its presence for years after it is cleaned up. The scarlet stream is best left unseen, and seldom thought of in a positive light. We need it to survive, but that does little to change the fact that it is a gruesome necessity. Some might go as far as saying the same about family. Water on the other hand, is clear and cleansing. Being surrounded by or immersed in water is often a pleasant experience and it is less likely to leave a visible mess. In that respect, water is like the friends we choose.
Blood is thicker than water, or so the obscenely popular saying dictates. But what exactly does that trivial fact mean? Is blood everything? The answer is yes only if you are a vampire, but the cardiac mercury is rarely so straightforward for many of the mere mortal population. In a strictly objective world, it is undeniable that blood is physically thicker than water but following the same train of thought, a cinder block is thicker still. In a world gone cynical, how exactly does the relative thickness of anything warrant consideration outside of the bedroom or construction industry? For instance, it is a common saying that families share common blood, or blood ties to borrow a cliché, yet my blood type happens to match millions of strangers. Does that mean I share ties with every person with A positive flowing through their veins? In my experience, it is not blood that binds us, an expression that sounds more like an obligation than anything else, but love.
Just as maternal instincts spring from compassion and love as opposed to duty and obligation, I feel the sanctity of family revolves not around the niceties of genetics but the emotional bond that it is impossible to force. A mother bears rears up to defend her cubs not out of reluctant responsibility but out of loyalty and devotion of her brood, proof even on the most primitive level that blood in truth means very little. In fact, the very concept of adoption refutes the inflated importance of blood. Sometimes the person who can offer the most love to someone else has no biological linkage. A selfish young mother may be unable to feel compassion for the animate product of her actions, proving that sometimes the only link a mother and her child have can be the umbilical cord at times. Yet that same baby could be the brilliant illumination another young couple needs to brighten their days. Would the baby be loved any less, its affections hindered, because their blood divides them? I think not. I feel so strongly about that, in fact, that my current girlfriend and I have discussed me adopting her daughter. I love her mother unconditionally and could not love her anymore if she was biologically mine. If the way we bonded and her little quirks are clues enough I’d say she’s clearly my child in spirit. Blood may be a useful tool in the horror movie industry, but in matters of the heart: it ironically matters very little.
Not having evolved bearing wings, everyone needs someone to catch them when they fall. It is in those we choose to arrest our descents that help define we who are. Friends are the superheroes who save us from ourselves, our sidekicks against our vices. During the disastrous break up with my former fiancé it was my friends that helped me keep it together even as everything was falling apart when family could only watch in helplessness as I spiraled to dark depths. They had no obligation to help me, and I definitely didn’t make it easy. Still, when I hit rock bottom they were there to pick me up again. Even several months later when she returned with the subtly and grace of a hurricane they stood by to support me through her vindictive wrath. When things became too much for me to handle and I reacted by pushing away those closest to me, it was my friends who refused to leave my side. It will be those same friends who read this and support me in all my endeavors.
Peeling away the frivolities of the human experience- the good, the bad, and the scary lays bare what matters most in the human equation. Just as the lone wolf starves, the solitary life is a hollow one. We are not a sum of our accomplishments and failures; we are a reflection of those who give us the strength we crave. Those who give us the wings to fly, and the courage to use them define the human experience. Best of all, they require no strings . . . or even blood ties.