Today, for the first time in many years, I woke up on Hari Raya feeling...absolutely nothing.

When I was a child, I'd wake up feeling excited. After a month of fasting, it's exciting to wake up and anticipate a day filled with family, food and festivities. The smell of the food, festive cakes and goodies always get me going. In my adolescence, this feeling of excitement turned into dread when the aunts and uncles on my dad's side would start to quarrel and fight amongst themselves over petty issues and even such simple things as seeking forgiveness for their sins of the past with each other.

Starting anew never really mattered with these people. It's always about whose kid was better, who had more status or who appeared to be more filial to their mother. "Forgive and forget' was more like lip service than anything in that household.  I believe in something else entirely. Because of these incidents, I started to dread Hari Raya. I didn't want to go out, I'd hibernate at home and just stay away from the family.

After breaking away from that family. I believe that you cannot forgive anything by just saying it. You have to believe it. And if you cannot forgive, for any reason, whatever it may be, it's time to walk away. Close that door and perhaps never see these people or speak about those incidents again.

Painful? Definitely. Walking away doesn't diminish the pain. You still feel every stab of it. You cry, spend sleepless nights thinking about every little detail and ask why and who and how...Painful as they are, closing the door on some of the things and the people that hurt me the most have helped me preserve my sanity. Cold? No. It  kept me going and keeps bitterness at bay. Over time, the unhappiness goes too. I can talk about some of these incidents but I do not dwell on them. Will I ever forgive some of these people? Maybe, but until I can forgive them wholeheartedly, I have no plans to let them back into my life. Forget? Ha. It'll be stupid to forget the things that happened. I remember everything and hope not to re-make those mistakes.

But today. for once in my life, I can finally let these feelings and these people go. And that, dear readers,  feels really, really good.