The thing about cutting my parents out of my life is that it doesn’t just impact my relationship with them. I am determined not to let my parents play gatekeeper to the rest of my family, so I have to make a stronger effort to maintain the relationships I value. When I’m invited to family events and I know my parents are going to be there, I go anyway. The only time this has happened so far was at my cousin’s wedding. It was the first time I had seen them since I sent my mom a letter, outlining her abuses and setting the new boundary for our non-relationship. It was really hard to see them. My dad wanted to act like nothing had happened. My mom wanted to talk to me. And I ignored them both. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but I also knew that the only way they wouldn’t have felt disrespected is if I would have acted like everything was fine and that they had been amazing parents for my whole life. I wasn’t willing to do that.

The real problem is when things happen at my parent’s house. Their house has always been the main gathering point for family connection and celebrations. My brother and sister in law just celebrated my niece’s first birthday at their house last month. So of course we were not there. And it sucks to miss out on those special moments. I keep telling myself that my nieces will benefit from my decisions later in life and hopefully one day understand why I wasn’t a huge part of their lives when they were younger. But it still makes me sad to miss it.

Another thing that I miss out on is seeing my grandma as often as I would like to. London Grandma lives in London full time. But she spends a few months in India and a few months with my parents in South Dakota every year. She’s 92 years old, so she doesn’t manage places outside of her comfort zone very well, unless my dad is there to help her. So that rules out a trip to Denver to see us. And we obviously don’t visit her in South Dakota anymore. We can visit her in London, which we try to do once a year. But it’s hard knowing that she is in South Dakota for 3-4 months at a time, and we aren’t able to see her when she’s so close. She doesn’t have a cell phone so we can’t call her to chat while she’s staying at my parent’s house either. This is honestly one of the hardest parts of the whole situation. I adore my grandma and it’s heartbreaking not to be able to see or talk to her for such a long time.

Setting this boundary with my parents has definitely made seeing other family members more difficult. It’s hard not to feel like I’m the one being punished, even though I’m the one doing the work, healing from developmental trauma, owning the truth of my childhood, how it’s impacted who I became as an adult and holding really hard boundaries. It would be so much easier to pretend like none of it happened. To continue walking on egg shells around my mom, enabling her instability. I could see my family more often and the relationships would be so much easier.

It’s also really hard to acknowledge that almost every other person in my extended family has a completely different impression of my mom. My own sister in law has posted on social media a few times about how much she loves my mom. I made sure to tell her and my brother about the sexual abuse when I was a child. The main reason I told them is because my mom watches my nieces on the weekends, and as a parent I thought they would at least want that information.

To be honest, I hoped that having that knowledge would impact their decisions on childcare. If I’m being totally honest, I secretly hoped it would impact their relationship with my parents. I have come to realize that the child in me still desperately wants someone to stand up for me, and protect me, and love me in a safe and healthy way. I continue to ache for the support of my childhood family. But I know based on their pattern of behavior that these things are not possible.

My brother and sister in law have told me they believed me, support my decisions and respect my boundaries with my parents. They also told me that they want no part of the conflict and don’t want to be put in the middle of anything. They don’t really want to talk to me about how I’m processing any of this, and they don’t really mention my parents in conversation. I suppose this is the absolute best I could have hoped for. They are choosing the easy path. Hope that nothing happens to their daughters. Continue to walk on egg shells around my mom. Keep her mentally stable by giving her what she wants. And honestly, I don’t blame them. It definitely makes me feel more alone though.

Anyways…Pakoras! You guys, this was SO FUN, and I AM SO PROUD of myself for how these turned out.

1. I researched a few different pakora recipes, and then combined the elements I liked into my own somewhat unique version. I feel like an actual cook!
2. I legitimately deep fried something at home. And no one died!
3. My husband, who wrinkles his nose at spinach, gobbled these up. Such a win!

Here are the recipes I pulled from.

1. All Recipes
2. BBC
3. Sophisticated Gourmet

I knew that seasoning the flour was going to be key to good flavor. I also wanted to make sure I added some type of rising agent, so they turned out fluffy. Growing up my mom made this with just onions, but I knew I wanted to add other ingredients as well. I ended up going with a combination of spinach, potatoes, green onions, regular onions and a green serraño pepper. I also knew the potatoes needed to be cut very thin, because they needed to cook in the time it took to fry the pakora.

So first Luke chopped everything. Major shout out for the help because I’m TERRIBLE at chopping. I really need to take a knife skills class.

While he chopped, I made the batter. I seasoned the dry flour first with salt, chili powder and garam masala. I also added 2 tsp of baking powder to act as a rising agent. I didn’t measure anything else…

Then I slowly added the water while simultaneously mixing the flour mixture until it was thick enough to coat the spoon. One of the recipes said it was okay for there to be bubbles, so I didn’t stress about it being totally smooth.

Next up, add those veggies!

Okay, now for the frying. Yikes. I don’t have a super deep pot so I used our dutch oven. We have the Lodge brand and it’s affordable and really high quality. Only $60 on Amazon! This is the one we have, and I really love it.

So, I dumped a whole thing of sunflower oil into this pot and waited for it to get hot. I don’t own a cooking thermometer, so I sort of just held my hand above the oil until it felt super hot. Then I slipped a piece of raw potato into the oil. Once it started bubbling and actually cooking in the oil, I knew it was hot enough to try frying. We had to test a few slices of potatoes before it was hot enough.

Then I used two spoons and very carefully dropped dollops of batter (similarly to scooping cookie dough onto a cookie sheet) into the oil and began to fry them. It’s imperative not to move the oil too much and be incredibly careful not to splash oil anywhere. My mom used to tell me stories of women who were frying things in oil and would somehow splash oil on their face and it would leave a hideous scar. And then no man would want to marry them! (The horror). I honestly think this is like, an Indian Urban Legend. Anyways…back to the frying.