Blood is thicker than water?

I've had quite a few incidents recently which have made me wonder about the different relationships that we make in our lives; relatives, friends, girl/boyfriend, colleagues, that hot-chick-next-door :-) Although some of us might taken it for granted, all these relationships have a very important role to play in our lives.
My friends have always been the most important people in my life. I dont have siblings and I could never really 'relate' to my relatives. They somehow always seemed too different. I've always had the luck to have great friends and they were always family to me. I never really knew how awfully good or what horrible stress it can be to have siblings. Until recently. This made me think about how some friends can be closer than siblings one has known for ever and how some siblings can be worse than worst friends.


Friends-complete strangers who we run into in the bizzare journey called life; strangers who then become true companions, sharing our lows and highs, shedding tears during our sorrow and shouting their hearts out during our joys, questioning our logic when we're about to make mistakes again but always there to pull us out of the pits we fall into.

Siblings - shared a womb, shared parents, shared possessions and sometimes fought with each other for that 'better' toy the other one had. Known each other for ages and yet, sometimes, grow up to live like complete strangers trying to ignore each other's existance. I've seen siblings who cant stand each other;hate do do things together, fight over money or property, blame each other for the silliest of things. Yet even they share a strange bond which, at times of need, makes them look out for each other.

Relatives - those people who come to visit during festive gettogethers or suddenly show up when some important decisions have to be taken; financial or otherwise. They are supposed to be family, I was told. I found most of mine worse than strangers; I dont know if only my relatives are so. But they are always their to give one a certain sense of belonginess.

What makes 'strangers' to friends and become a part of our life? What makes siblings or relatives, the so called family, behave like they couldnt care less?
Is it because we get to choose our friends and not relatives? Is it because we mostly have friends who are more or less like ourselves but the relatives often just too different?

I've had bad experiences with close friends in the past; backstabbing, lies, taking advantage - there have been quite some unpleasant memories. But at end of every friendship that went wrong, I could atleast tell myself that they were after all just strangers. But what about when you're own family lets you down?
I've seen enough people chose family over friends without considering what their friends have done for them. 'He/She is my family... ' seems to be a quite a common and unfair excuse.

Is this fair? Shouldnt the people, who really care for us, be the ones who deserve our affection? Is it fair that some people, who have nothing in common with us other than the surname, enjoy right to interfere in our lives?
Blood is indeed thicker than water, but let that not be the philiosophy while deciding whom to have around us.

The Innocence

This is an old sketch i made about 4 years back. Think i'll be starting with sketching again. Learning oil painting now...it's pretty messy :-D