Blood Is Thicker Than Water

Don't we all know this saying?

And yet, have we been deceived in its initial meaning?

I was surprised to realise that half of the original is actually missing. How I discovered this is a story in itself, but it has to do with my love for language and my recent beginning stages of studying etymology. The most important thing now is to ask what the full version of this phrase actually is. But before we do that, let me take you on a heartfelt story that amplifies why this blog post is close to my heart and has felt of utmost importance to publish.

Within the first two decades of my humble existence I have been taught that family comes before all else and that outside of the atomic family core, no one can be trusted. It was a frequent sentence that family consists of 80% hardship and 20% joy, that the former is the price for the latter. Obviously I never was quite the fan of my family, things were strange between us and I was always the one to be blamed for that. I took to that role like fish to water. Because of course I was the problem. Everyone around me seemed quite content with life itself, knowing what they were doing or were supposed to be doing. I was the Anglerfish, so to speak, but with no purpose to my existence. I would draw attention wherever I went, wanted or unwanted, and it would mostly go to me being bullied or reprimanded for either saying something or not saying anything. In later years the metaphor of the Anglerfish makes even more sense because I always felt like I drew people in and yet at some point they would eventually discover the horrific being I was and run away screaming. In later years also, meaning after having survived my first two decades as a human being, I discovered that there are other ways a family works. Sure, every one of them had their own challenges. Expectations, mostly in regards to academic success and future work-related prospects, for one, or simply the continuation of normalised generational trauma like not speaking about mental health or working oneself to shreds to earn a pension that would likely not be existent by the time they would reach the age for it. I found that some families had strange ways and alternative views on what family meant. I discovered that underlying all of it is the current that adults seemed to dump onto their children their own unhealed generational trauma and generally would sell their view of the world as the only view of the world, alongside the threat that anyone daring to contradict it could be expelled from the family unit, rendered to certain death. Because that happens when you are on your own, without blood relations.

By the end of my third decade I decided to not only give my atomic family a chance to tread the healing, integrating journey with me, I expanded my family relations and contacted some long-lost relative. Long-lost, why? Not quite necessary for the purposes of this blog post, although good to know for the fact that my parents hated him for what he'd done to them and me, and he wasn't inclined to apologise because in his point of view they were to blame. Standing in the middle, I wanted to have both sides and see what it felt like to actually add to the limited amount of close family relations I had. Limited as in practically non-existent because I am certainly not close to my parents and, apart from one grandmother, have no contact with anyone else either. So, I took the leap and reconnected.

And what a journey of discovery this one has been. For the fragility of this newly formed connection I treaded softly and lightly. I never accepted gifts even though I was on numerous accounts showered with the prospect of unconditional support in whatever form, but also mostly financial, should I ever need it. And indeed, one time, this support came and was indeed given as a gift. Over the years I started trusting. I thought, well, even in a weird and eccentric way, I find myself in a position where I could entertain the thought that I would be held, even if not really understood or seen, unconditionally supported in my endeavours. I even considered that this person might feel a surge of pride at the woman I had become, able to see how my life's choices were not easy, how I continually show up for myself and my dreams. And also over the years the showering of unconditional support kept coming, never ceased and always was accompanied by the index finger aloft and a serious expression with the earnest tones emphasising I should ask before I am in trouble, not wait too long due to pride, and trust that the aid would be there always.

You know where this is going, I guess. For in the precise hour of my most dire need this same person trashed all the fine woven pieces of our relationship. Firstly by refusing to have an open eye-to-eye conversation about my situation. Then by not even deigning it worthy to set a time and date to meet up when I repeatedly wanted to at least have the physical support of talking it over with someone that, due to his life experience, has a lot more advice than myself on this topic. Mostly though because he deemed me a liar, outright. There was no kindness in approaching my difficult situation, there was no hand reaching out, ear given or even consideration for other ways of support that could be offered. He expects the worst of people, I knew that. It seems he also expects the worst of family too. I couldn't even be sad or hurt, I just felt for him. How lonely, how warped, how fearful and anxious, how empty must this life feel to him if he expects knives in his back from family, deceit around every corner? I felt sorry for him. And I felt, obviously after a couple of hours and days to digest the fact that I couldn't rely on help from that corner, relieved. I had been attacked, my integrity had been attacked, my whole viewpoint on life had been tackled by the way he tried to enforce a frame of conditions on me in order to help me, after calling me a liar, before flat out refusing me, and turning a simple question into a month-long written exchange, back and forth.

Don't get me wrong. I can ask for help and be refused, without any bad or hurt feelings, because I am not entitled to anyone's help, I am aware of that. It is not that he wouldn't help me. It is the manner of disrespect and unkindness, of preposterous and judgemental disrespect in the way he treated me, that distorted any kind of accord we might have had before.

And we are turning full circle back to the saying:

Blood is thicker than water.

For some families maybe.

For most families probably not.

And doesn't this give us a very dangerous trap right from the beginning of our lives? The trap of separation, of thinking that someone owes us something just because we share the same bloodline? And aren't we all, to some point, family since we all are here on the same planet, mainly looking for the same things? Love, peace, shelter, food and joy?

Why exclude the rest of the world by putting up a picket fence to keep everyone around us out?

There is something rather fishy here. Like the Anglerfish. A glowing orb of a phrase held in front of us for the majority of our upbringing until following this orb brings us to a dead end. Or a gaping mouth with razor-sharp teeth ready to swallow us whole if we don't come up with a plan B. Fast.

Therefore may I reveal what this sentence in its entirety actually states?

Tadaaaa...

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

The support and love found in the covenant, the friends, the people that become your loved ones not because an unspoken societal pressure makes it so, but because they are the ones that have no obligation whatsoever to love and support you in mutual respect, choose to do so simply because of who you are. We grow up and choose our partner outside of our family also. So the shortened version of this saying is not only incomplete, it is misleading, caging, suffocating. I am speaking on my behalf here. I have met a lot of families that in a sense become a covenant themselves, trusted loved ones that would never dare to make you feel like you are anything less just because you are different to them in your views or your talents, in fact, they make it their life's mission to support you in every way possible to hone in the skills you have and act as a plush cushion and cuddling blanket to make your world as best a place as possible. I, on the other hand, am ready to shed the shortened version of this sentence from my memory and flush it out of my system, get rid of it even though it has been engraved onto my essence, I will overwrite it with the true saying.

Because time and again, throughout my life, it was my covenant, never my family, that was there for me. When I was homeless or faced with immediate eviction notices of premises, it was friends that gave me shelter, when I was sick and in need of a bed to recover, again friends, when I was in between jobs or countries, when I lost my faith in people or being able to rely on anyone else but me, it was friends again that offered their homes, their hearts, their mental, emotional, spiritual and financial support to get me through, up and going again. In my darkest hours, when ending this life seemed the only way out, they never knew, but it was them that held me firm that for some reason they saw something within me, some worth, some spark, some incomprehensible and unfathomable essence, that I was never able to sense within myself.

I am done with a victimhood mindset, because I am not a victim. I am also done with sugar-coating my relatives and letting them believe that anything I do, have or am is due to our blood relation. You clothed me? Sent me to school? Put food on the table and a roof over my head? Well done, that is the bare minimum if you decide to have a child, but well, here is my heartfelt gratitude, thank you. To this day though I also question if my friends are sane because I cannot see how I am worthy enough of their devotion. And that is because the family, the womb, the blood relations, gave me this exact emotional blueprint.

My loves, you know I usually end this with love and light. So I will continue to do it because this is not a manifesto or negative outcry for war and blood. This is a state-of-the-art post that should serve everyone who ever doubts themselves when it comes to not feeling close to blood-related family as a beacon of light. You are not alone in that sentiment. Don't let yourself be told half-truths with half-finished sentences. I would wish for us that experience the same rocky seas in regards to our origins of wombs to find peace. Dare to go out and find your covenant. It took me way too long to discard limiting beliefs that hindered me from fully embracing and trusting the loved ones that were there for years. I am still not quite there. But I have started. And the revelation of this simple and oh-so powerful righted full-length phrase reverberated within me so deeply that I felt called to share this vibration with all of you.

So.

Love fiercely, don't settle for less than your calling, be kind, yes, always, yet only share your energy with those that appreciate it. Life is too short to sow seeds and spend love where soil is dead and unresponding to any attempt of care and dedication.

Love and light, my beloved souls.

And love and light to all of you special loved ones out there, my lighthouses, my stars in the night sky, my breath in my lungs, my heart pumping blood, my soulmates that continue to back me up and support me through all of my wicked, weird and sometimes worthwhile endeavours. Thank you, you have saved me in more ways than words could describe.

Thank you.

Nadine