Now you might be questioning what ‘framily’ means. Well, my ‘framily’ defines it as friends and family, but even if our family friend’s aren’t related we considered them family. We might not be blood related but our love runs deeper. “Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family.”

My framily is one of a kind. Every single year we spend a week or two at the beach—and yes all twenty-two of us fit in a house for a week (it get chaotic sometimes) BUT this is what my framily taught me:

LIVE EVERY DAY WITH SO MUCH PASSION. Dear god, my framily is so passionate. They constantly tell me you only live life once so do it out of love. I’m pretty sure every morning I hear my framily say that they love each other and even if they don’t say it their actions show it.

DANCE YOUR LIFE AWAY. Stay up all night and talk your life away or maybe dance. My framily is one big party. They stay up till 3am and just talk on the back porch about anything and everything. That’s the thing I love so much about every single one of them.

BE IN THE MOMENT. Nothing else matters except those small moments where you feel totally and utterly at peace. I never got it why my mother counted down to our big vacation until I joined them on the back porch. When I sat there with them, my problems just slowly disappear and I felt utterly at peace.

DON'T WISH YOUR LIFE AWAY. My wise aunties always tell me how important it is to make every day count cause one day you'll be eighty-five reminiscing all the memories from when you were 18. I also looked past this piece of advice but now I'm eighteen and I wish I never wished my life away. Instead, I should've been hiking, or playing with friends. Now I live in student debt and constantly worry about my grades.

"Suddenly you're 21 and you're screaming along in the car to all the songs you listened to when you were sad and middle school and everything is different but everything is good"

Most importantly: GO WITH THE FLOW. Life will throw you so many different way. Sometimes you'll go three steps back and one step forward. Either way my framily always taught me to keep going with the flow. God is good. God has a plan for you.

My framily has impacted my deeply. I have seen or heard stories of the experience they've been through or the battles they've fought through just amazes me. They truly taught me to never give up. They taught me what forgiveness is. I've seen them almost rip their head off over silly fights and the next minute they are hugging it out. They taught me what love is. There were times where they had nothing but each other and that what got them through those rough times.

Family or Framily is everything.