Got to spend some quality time with my family/friends this past Thanksgiving weekend. Most of it was fawesome, some of it sucked, but all of it was a blessing and made me realize just how important my family and true friends are in my life. As a matter of fact, I consider my closest friends to be an extension of my family. I even thank the people who have burned me in the past cause they have caused me to become a better person, and grow spiritually, mentally and physically. All of my friends and family have taught me to ""Take away the dross from silver, And it will go to the silversmith for jewelry." (one of my fave proverbs ever) The dross is the scum that forms on the surface of molten metal and waste or foreign matter. We all go through a refining process in our lives and family and friends are a great part of this process. Okay your turn.

my family is important. they are important because i have no friends. my wife is my enemy.

Very important to me.
I can always count on them to be there for me whenever.
I would give my life for my family and the very few people I call my friends.

They are everything.

i'd be dead or living in a ditch were it not for them.

Very fucking important

...

they are everything to me

...btw im really shocked you didnt post pictures on this

i'd say quite important to me. atleast my family is. We're not THAT close but I love 'em. Thanksgiving(Canadian) seems so long ago and people have been in and out of the hospital since then and I really just can't wait to see everyone again over Christmas and the early New Year when everyone has time off

karmatornado said:

nice statement

I have always supported my family (even when they get on my last nerves! LOL). I am trying to teach the little one that family is the most important people in your life and the people you should always want to treat with love and respect because they will usually be their for you when no one else will.

But then I have to keep him away from his father's family because they are basically a bunch of criminals. I'm hoping to stuff his head full of some common sense and self preservation before he ever has to deal with those folk. Like will call to like, and I have a bad feeling he will gravitate to them because he has so many of their bad qualities. And then they will try to rob him blind!

At the same token I don't talk to my brother anymore since he got drunk and tried to pull a gun on me. Some people no matter how closely related to you need to be left alone and kept out of your life.

I am grateful for my friends, thank God like they say, you can choose your friends. Some of them I have known for decades. I'm not very good at staying in contact regularly but I do know that my friends have my back even if I haven't called them in years LOL.

Family is very important to me unfortunately we can't always get along and I hate that

whistle said:

family is very important to me, which is why it makes me sad that most all of my mom's side of the family is always full of drama, and everyone is always looking to stab the other in the back! i don't get it? i just want a loving family that is supportive of one another, but they just can't be normal. one person is always talking behind another's back, or making gossip to hurt another one. i simply don't understand it???
my dad's family is a lot closer and for the most part will help each other out and be supportive.
my friends are very important to me as well, and a few of them have been there for me a lot more than my blood relatives ever have. so in some ways my friends are more important to me. sad, but true.

We re all family

uber-close to moms . the rest, meh...

Very important..they can tell you about your history before you came and while you were growing.

Now then there is some families who don't have loving relationships with eachother. In those cases family can bring you down if they are not positive. You never owe your family anything for being alive.

I feel always make sure my family is there, but don't let my family or friends MAKE ME. So many people are a slave to their family and friends to please people around them and that's how some end up hating their families.

DanceWme said:

What she said.

Beautiful stuff, Karmatornado. God bless.

My family and friends have been very important to my formation, but largely through their absence, to be honest.

Since high school, my number of friends -- not just associates, but ride-or-die friends -- has dwindled to maybe two. And my family, while they've always been physically present, and while they've always articulated the desire to be supportive (or the delusion that they have been ) through certain things I've faced, have, frankly, been little more than spectators... and I know they think and say sometimes quite disparaging things when I'm not around.

For a long time I resented not having "people," but on occasion I get to see how that, in itself, has been somewhat of a blessing: This past Thanksgiving, I attended four dinners: with my mom and siblings; with my wife's parents and siblings; with some moderately close cousins, aunts, etc.; and with a newlywed couple I'd call my best friends. I love them with no qualifications, but they are ALL some of the craziest, most negative and miserable people I've ever met. I'm certain that had I spent the last 10-15 years of my life more intimately with them, I'd be a dramatically different person... if I survived.

This is not to say that I see myself as "better" than they are. (I've certainly got my own brand of crazy, negativity, misery.) And I certainly still get pieces of real wisdom from them. But them having been in "the background" vs. more immediately involved in my personal life has been a good thing for me.

There are a couple of friends I would do anything for, the family meh.

whistle said:

wtf!

My family is very important to...my kids have been my life since I was 15, I couldn't imagine my life without them. Now that I have grandbabies...I can honestly say, my life would be empty without my family.

the downside is that my family is a bunch of jokers i can barely trust...but i love em enyhow, and they love me, and i'd rather deal with their junk, which aint too different from junk i have to deal with anywhere else...

I have a brother and sister that are very important to me but when it comes to holidays, they usually spend them with their inlaws. All the rest of my family that I care about such as my mother, grandparents, and great aunts and uncles are all dead. I have a father, another sister, and two uncles still living but they can kiss my ass.

As for friends, I have two work-a-holic friends which I rarely see these days but do talk by phone. My boss is probably my best friend these days and I consider her as my "second mama" since she looks out for me so much. Some of my other best friends are dead. All this damn death surrounding me.
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[Edited 12/7/09 9:40am]

Friends and family come and go. God comes first.

Family comes first in my life. I have my mother and brother now; my daddy died in 2001. When my father's mother was alive, the extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) would keep in touch. After she died, communication started to slack off with the extended family. Now I don't hear from them at all. I have a few "friends" who would give me moral support, but beyond that, I don't know. I've always felt that in order to have friends you have to be a friend. I've tried, but sometimes I'm a poor judge of character...

I have no real family and never have, I can see clearly how important family is in other peoples lives whether those persons realize it themselves or not.