Let's say a friend come up to me asking, "Would you rather spend your life with family or friends?"

"Family."

"What, why?"

"Because it's the family I make that counts. This includes my close friends and relatives. No one said that it had to only be blood-related."

Whenever I get a similar question, I always say family. The friends I know I can trust and are loyal become my relatives. You don't have to be blood-related to be considered family, and as I was pondering this, it made me curious.

I'm a reader, as most of my relatives and friends know, and as I read more, I become open to more possibilities for what could happen in life. It especially got me thinking about who I trusted, who I considered family. It made me doubt the people I knew, which made me realize the kinds of people I knew. I don't know half of my blood-related relatives, yet they are considered family. And as I became more aware, I was more conscious of who I became friends with.

I've always had trust issues, and reading made me aware of that. So, through many, many trials, I started to find who my real family was. Over time, I not only considered the people around me as friends, but they were also relatives to me. It took a while, months, for me to figure out that they were and that I trusted them with my life. My best friend is practically like an older sister to me, and her younger sister feels like a little sister to me, too.

Family. It only grows from there.

I also wanted to know what someone thought about their family and who they included in it. So, I asked my basketball coach and she said:

"Family, to me, is a group of people who have common interests and a common love for one another. Like I have my personal family, my husband and my children, who I love more than anything in this world, and then I have my extended family, like my parents and my brother, who I feel the exact same way about. But I also have my basketball family, and I consider those girls [to be] like my children.

"And sometimes, I yell at them like I'm their mom. Sometimes, I have to discipline them like I'm their mom. But most of the time, I just love them like I'm their mom. I care about them, no matter what. It's unconditional, and I consider them to be my family as well. So I think that family can mean that you are related in some sort of way, but sometimes, it's just a close group of people who have common interests and common care for one another."

Her family consists of different people who have different backgrounds, not just her husband, children and extended family. She loves them all equally.

But there are other people who don't believe this. People think friends are friends and that family is only made up of those who are blood-related. I respect that. This could be what they grew up believing, but beliefs can change. I hope people realize blood isn't the only thing that makes up a family.

Everyone has a different answer because everyone's life is different. But something that I know is important is that family doesn't end with blood. It will grow and have people who are blood-related and some who aren't. It may have those who are the same race and religion and those who aren't. It may consist of pets, but that's what makes each family unique. No one said it ends with blood, because it will only grow bigger and bigger.