Hi. My name is Samantha and I started this blog to document a couple of different things. I have decided to teach myself how to cook Indian food. I am also going through the process of grieving the loss of my parents. I know. Let me break it down a little further.

My parents are still alive, but I created a very hard boundary and they are no longer a part of my life. I have them blocked on every social media channel, no email addresses, phone calls or text messages. And that’s because I experienced every kind of abuse one can, while living in their home. In the past year, we have been in the same room with each other one time, at my cousin’s wedding. It was pretty awkward and incredibly hard. But throughout this past year, I have repeatedly shown myself that I can do hard things.

Cutting my parents out of my life also made me realize that there are things about myself that I need to create stronger connection to. My parents were really my only tie to my identity as an Indian American. They immigrated from India to the US before I was born, and I grew up eating home cooked Indian food prepared by my mother. My parents moved to South Dakota, a place void of any type of diversity or international culture. And as a person of color in that environment, I fought every way in which they tried to instill a part of my Indian heritage, because it was just another way that made me different from everyone else.

Well I’m an adult now. I left South Dakota and never looked back. I’m old enough to protect myself from my parents and live my life according to my own values and belief system. I don’t owe anybody an explanation. I have had quite a few family members tell me I’m wrong in cutting my parents out of my life. They don’t understand or just choose not to believe my reasons as to why this is the best decision for me. A lot of other people feel really sad for me, that I don’t have a relationship with them. Honestly, cutting them out of my life has been incredibly liberating. I confronted my abusers, stood up for myself and created boundaries to protect myself and prevent further mental, emotional and physical damage. This is best thing I have ever done for myself.

All this being said, there is an element of grief that must be acknowledged. The truth is that I have been grieving the loss of my childhood and any relationship I wanted to have with my parents for the last nine years. I longed for a relationship with my mom until I was 28 and realized that she wasn’t capable of giving that to me. And even though my “relationship” with both parents up until this point had been only superficial and never positive or happy, I find myself filled with sorrow at the loss of it. I can simultaneously crave the biological connection and acknowledge that neither parent is healthy enough to give it.

So thus, grief. And I’m teaching myself to cook Indian foods as a way to work through these feelings. I want to create a connection to my cultural identity outside of my parents. When people eat my cooking, I want them to feel what’s in my heart. Grief, strength, sadness, hope and a little fire. I like the idea of saying goodbye to my parents by creating something that brings me joy and strengthens a connection to part of who I am. We’ll see how it goes!