Don't waste time on what's not important. Don't get sucked into the drama. Get on with it: don't dwell on the past. Be a big person; be generous of spirit; be the person you'd admire.
When I moved to London at age 16, tired of the shuffle around other people's houses and ready to live on my own, I met my English brother and sister, who instantly claimed me as family.
I was a supporting character in other people's lives, which seemed right and familiar to me. I was also an outsider: English in the U.S., American in England, dogged yet comforted by that familiar feeling of alien-ness, which occupied that space where my sense of self should have been.
I, personally, have had to rise above my feelings of inferiority to my sister Anjelica, not to mention feeling sorry for myself because I lost my mother so young.
The most important thing in convoluted families, I learnt as I wrote, is that the child feels loved. I knew from a young age that I was a problem which required constant solving; but I never felt unloved. I was lucky.
Losing one's mother to a car crash at age four isn't a readily accessible idea of good luck, but I've come to accept it as the condition that was required for my luck to fall into place.
What I am most grateful for is that neither of my fathers pushed the relationship; they just let things develop and didn't impose anything on me. They were both just there, emanating stability in a very unstable situation.
