Family [ˈfæmɪli]

a word carrying an endless number of feelings, emotions and memories. A home, a sacred place, heaven and hell but always full of love. A particular location inhabiting those who need you as much as you need them.

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Before I could start to even think about what 'family' and 'ARMY Brigade' means to me I had to look it up first and stubbled about the following words.

"According to Sociologists, the family is an intimate domestic group of people related to one another by bonds of blood, sexual mating, or legal ties. It has been a very resilient social unit that has survived and adapted through time. The family acts as a primary socialization of children whereby the child first learns the basic values and norms of the culture they will grow up in. A child needs to be carefully nurtured, cherished and molded into responsible individuals with good values and strong ethics. Therefore, it is important to provide them the best childcare so that they grow up to be physically, mentally and emotionally strong individuals."

Obviously, most to none of us fit to this definition of what a family is. It's impossible for all of us to actually be related to each other by blood. We are living in different cities, countries, continents, cultures and religions. We speak way too many languages and have a huge age gap from being a teenage kid to being a parent, with a teenage kid. Calling us a family under this circumstances is some kind of hypocrisy. But this applies only if you stop reading with the first sentence, cause everything else fits us perfectly well. So well, one could believe they did observe us and wrote those lines after realizing that bonds made by blood are not what matters the most to form a very resilient social unit which may survive and adapt through time.

A unit which will be able to 'raise and teach' those who will later in time, show those 'children' what it means to be one of them and escort them into 'adulthood' by giving them the best 'childcare' we have.

ARMY Brigade started as a tiny little baby account with no support. Like an abandoned little shack in the woods and slowly became an indestructible home with a massive infrastructure. Lots of ARMY joined us which gave AB the opportunity to expand. New teams, accounts and projects had their chance to be born into this world. All this was and is only possible because of you - because of our strong bonds. AB is a place of peace, forgiveness and support, not only for me, but all of us. We had loads to learn and hurdles to overcome on our way. We shared laughter and tears, at times, both at the same time. I came to join by a nasty trick, played by Hope, asking me to help out and prepare posters for a project. Little did I know this 'help out' will never end.

Although it took quite some time to become a full-fledged member, hiding in the shadows which was really fun by the way. Actually, I feel like there should be a warning at the entrance of AB. The saying 'once you jimin you can't jimout' isn't just perfectly describing BTS and it's fandom but this base too.

But AB isn't just a safe retreat to use when life gets hectic. It became an important part of my life. A part I don't ever want to miss anymore. It's my save house when I'm feeling down and it's the place where I come to first to share my happy moments.

I love to remember the old days when we all just met and started to get to know each other on 'LINE'. Back then we were just dreaming about meeting each other and attending a BTS' concert together. How we used to reassure each other that one day these dreams will become reality. The feelings I had when talking to some of you for the first time. It was like we already knew each other for ages.

We didn't need much words to realize this bond is something special. Something that will change my whole life - and it did! Today I'm extremely grateful to all the opportunities I had to meet up with my AB family. Hopefully there will be many more opportunities to get to know more of my family members.

Nevertheless, as much as AB is a safe and shiny purple bubble it is also a challenging boot camp. I did teach myself a lot of things like editing pictures and videos, have improved my English skills, learned to read Hangul, revived my basic knowledge about programming and am about to advance them, got to know everything there is about YouTube - always have to keep myself up to date, digging into marketing and public relations as well as statistics on way too many apps/websites and BTS MVs. Still, I have to study more so I can support and be of help to my family. BTS and AB make me go way beyond my own boundaries. They make me a better me.

"You gave me the best of me. So you'll give you the best of you."

Those aren't just empty words chosen because they fit into the song. They are a perfect description of what we do every day. We give our very best to support those we love and at the same time we have to never abandon ourselves. No matter if it's intellectual or our health. I try my very best to improve the version of me almost every day - except for comebacks, then I’m just a drooling wreck. I try to improve the human I am, so I’ll be a better version of me tomorrow and of better help to my family. Being honest I have to admit that there are much more days I feel useless than of any help. I pressure myself a lot, even though I know it’s not right. But I think all this pressure is fine to a certain point. It keeps me motivated. It’s the fuel to keep me running.

Supporting each other and growing together is what makes us a very resilient social unit that will be able to survive and adapt through time.

Family is the place we feel the safest. It's them who we want to share all our happy moments with and receive support from on our saddest days. We love them, not for all the benefits they may bring us but for the simple reason of who they are. You call it unconditional love. The same feeling a mother has for their kids or siblings for each other, just for the mere cause of having bonds of blood. For me, having this kind of bonds, this unit, with a bunch of people I wasn’t even acquainted to an hour ago is a huge privilege. Chances are extremely low to find your special people in a world with almost 8 billion other humans. Of course, being connected the way we are nowadays is an advantage humanity didn’t have 10 years ago and it makes finding your second family much easier but even if we had the same technology back then, I’m almost a 100% sure we wouldn’t be connected as we are today.

Having this family is a privilege. But having BTS is a blessing! They gave us all we needed to find each other. Those seven dorks gave us the cyanoacrylate adhesive we need to connect and never ever part.

Not in this life - not in any other!

Let’s always be thankful for having them, for their personalities, their music, their entertainment, their words, and our amazing, overwhelming, meaningful, impressive and much loved name - ARMY - there is no other word in this world which could have fit all of us this perfect. #ARMYmeansFamily