Family????

I've never had family.
Yes, I've known people I was related to by blood, but the ones in that category I ever felt like I could really "go home" to if I needed to are long gone now. I've never had that relationship with either of my bio parents, and my relationship with my stepdad was much healthier and happier, though strained for very different reasons, in very strange ways.
Sitting here and wondering if I gave up too soon, if I wasn't as right as I thought, even if I wasn't wrong, maybe I wasn't completely justified in my actions at that particular point....
But I'll never know, because gone is gone.... because some parts of your past will never be willing to return, or maybe they're not supposed to, I don't know...
I'm lucky to have what I do now, and yet, all I can do is look back at my past and wonder if I'd do it all again, knowing what I know now. I just wish the answer was yes.
How do I look at my closest friends, and know that walking away from them is WRONG- that these people are FAMILY and they would not give up on me no matter what, and yet know that this is knowledge I didn't have to be able to apply it not so terribly long ago???
How can you ever move forward when the past is so painful, and still clinging so much to your very soul? I don't want to lose what I have today, I don't want to lose the hope I have for my future, but my past just hasn't really left me yet.