It Was the Summer of 2007

Today, for the first time in a long while, I’m linking up with Finish the Sentence Friday (yes, on a Sunday, but I wasn’t inspired on Friday). The prompt this week is “It was the summer of…”.

Last Wednesday marks eleven years since I started living independently in the city of Nijmegen, where I’d go to university. It was a Wednesday back then too. It was the summer of 2007. We’d had a heatwave in July, but as far as I remember, the weather wasn’t good in August.

On August 1, 2007, my parents drove the 40’ish miles from the independence training home in the city of Apeldoorn to Nijmegen with me. The car was packed full of my belongings. While the training home apartments were furnished, I still had some ofmy own furniture. Besides, my new apartment was only partly furnished.

I didn’t feel much on my way to Nijmegen. I was drugged up with the antipsychotic a psychiatrist had prescribed just a week before. I still find it rather weird that I’d started a new medication just a week before a majr transition, because how would we know whether it was working then?

When my parents had put together my new furniture, we went to the nearby Chinese takeaway. I had learned to cook in the independence training home, but I don’t think my parents trusted me enough to do it for them.

After finishing our food and putting the leftovers in the fridge for the next day, I crashed. I cried. I still find it painful to remember, as I was always taught not to cry. My mother saw me cry, whcih was terribly embarrassing. She didn’t comfort me. I was 21-years-old, after all, and no longer my parents’ responsibility.