When I say the word friendship, what comes to mind?
Sleepovers? Crying on the playground? Trading stickers with the kind of intensity only an 8-year-old can bring to a Lisa Frank unicorn? What era are you dropped into—1990s? 80s? Do you think about sports, late nights, mixtapes, survival?
Do you feel calm—or nervous? Alone—or deeply known?
Do you think about missed classes, showing up at someone’s apartment at 1 a.m. with fries and that wild look in your eye that says, You won’t believe what just happened? Learning to drive? Getting lost on purpose? Watching TV for ten hours straight on a floor futon you got off Craigslist? Sitting in a field talking about the future? Surviving your past together?
Now, pause.
Take one quiet moment and ask yourself this:
Outside of your family, who has known you the longest?
Let the name or face float up. Let the memories—sweet, messy, painful, sacred—arrive. Maybe there’s laughter. Maybe there’s ache. Just hold it. Breathe. Be curious about this sensation, if that’s accessible to you. It’s only information.
Let’s unpack it a bit.
Because maybe—just maybe—family isn’t always the best word to describe closeness.
Maybe the real question is:
Who did I invite into my life—and who invited me?
Rethinking “Blood Is Thicker Than Water”
Let’s start here:
There’s a well-worn phrase that gets thrown around like gospel in times of stress or obligation:
“Blood is thicker than water.”
We hear it at holidays, funerals, custody disputes, and passive-aggressive Sunday dinners. It’s often said with the implication that family comes first—always, no matter what.
But what if we’ve misunderstood it all along?
The original phrase is believed to be:
“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”
Which turns the meaning on its head.
Rather than elevating biological ties, this version acknowledges that chosen bonds—formed through shared experience, loyalty, and care—can be even stronger than those of birth. The “blood of the covenant” refers to the sacred commitments we make in community, friendship, service, or even survival. “Water of the womb” refers to biology alone.
If you’ve ever felt closer to your chosen family than to those who raised or share DNA with you—you’re not the exception. You’re the ancient proverb.
In therapeutic work—particularly with trauma survivors, LGBTQ+ individuals, adoptees, estranged adult children, and people navigating intergenerational harm—we remind folks:
- Family is not always safe.
- Boundaries with family are healthy and necessary.
- You get to choose who is in your life.
- And yes, chosen family is real family.
Women and Community Across History
Sociologically, women have relied on one another for survival, storytelling, resistance, and healing for millennia. Whether we’re looking at African American church mothers, the kinkeeping roles women take on in families, the feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s, or informal kitchen-table caregiving networks today—women build families that don’t always share last names.
In many cultures, women’s relationships were historically dismissed as frivolous or emotional fluff—until researchers realized that these bonds play a measurable role in health outcomes, child development, economic stability, and social resilience. (Yes, friendship lowers your blood pressure and increases longevity. Cookies might also help. Science is still working on that.)
Anthropologist Sarah Hardy has written extensively about cooperative child-rearing and how human survival has depended on alloparenting—meaning, other people besides the biological parent caring for children. The research shows what many of us know intuitively:
We were never meant to do this alone.
We need people who show up with snacks, tears, the right book, the wrong advice, a ride to the appointment, or just the presence to sit quietly with us while our world feels like it’s cracking apart.
We need our women. We need our people.
My Own Moment of Witnessing
Tonight I sat at dinner with my mentor of over 25 years. She had invited me to join her and one of her oldest friends—another woman she’s known for six decades. That’s longer than most marriages last.
At one point, the conversation turned to chocolate chip cookies.
“I never liked the cookie part,” one said. “But she liked the chips.”
“Now I only want dark chocolate.”
“I know how to make those for you now.”
“Remember how we’d sit and eat them?”
Cue their origin story. They were thirteen. They raided her mom’s cabinets and found beans, mushrooms, and frozen hamburger. They threw it all into a pot like they were on a cooking show.
“We really thought we had something going on.”
“And then… it was sludge.”
“Even the dog wouldn’t eat it!”
We laughed. I mean, really laughed. My eyes welled up. These women, now in their seventies, were cackling over a memory that had clearly been shared at a hundred tables. And now, at this one, I had been invited in.
Not as a professional. Not as a client. Not even as a mentee. But as family—the kind you make by being present and showing up over time.
Later that evening, I shared something hard. They listened. They didn’t rush to fix it. They just sat with me—offering presence, not solutions. I looked up and they looked back and their eyes said:
We’ve got you.
It hit me hours later: we had all made our own families.
Not with vows or ceremonies. Not with perfect dinners or perfect lives. But with each other. Through time. Through care. Through the mess.
For Anyone Still Looking
If you’re reading this and thinking,
“I don’t have people like that.”
Please hear me:
You can still find them. You can still build that kind of family.
It doesn’t matter how old you are.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve made mistakes.
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve felt alone.
You deserve to be witnessed. You deserve to be held in the kind of shorthand that only comes from real presence and real time.
Sometimes the new people see you more clearly than the old ever did.
Sometimes the old ones see the parts no one else can.
Either way—you are not too late. You are not too much. And the people who are meant to be in your life don’t need you to be perfect. They just need you to be real.
With deepest gratitude to the many women who have invited me in—into their families, their kitchens, their lives, their stories. Thank you to the women I’ve mentored and been mentored by, the colleagues who taught me how to stay steady, and the clients who let me walk beside them in their most tender moments.
And thank you—most especially—to the two friends who always brought cookies and couldn’t cook for shit.
You are my people.
