I Prefer Water To Blood

It’s a healthy thing to like the people you have been brought up with, especially if they are in your own family.

Families are about protection and safety. They provide our first glimpse of micro-society and prepare us (hopefully) for the macro one. If your first taste of the micro is off-putting, the macro may taste like an ocean of shit.

I never understood why some people chose to distance themselves from their kin. Some moved far away and never shared a word. The tales of long-lost aunties or uncles, brothers or sisters, were always a quiet source of conversation amongst mourners at funerals or weddings. The exiled were the outcasts, or the odd ones. The myriad of reasons that went into that decision to separate could be appreciated, but their drastic solution did seem a little unforgiving and final.

The family ties with my original blood relations have become…