My (Second) Favorite September Memory

Hi everyone. I want to write, but honestly don’t feel like sharing about all the stressors of the last few days in my current care home. Instead, I decided to draw inspiration from Marsha’s 10 on the 10th post again and share one of my favorite September memories. My favorite of all time is of course my wedding date in 2011, but I’ve written tons of posts about that already I believe. So I’m going to share about my other favorite memory. This is only a favorite memory in hindsight, as it was intensely stressful back then. I refer, of course, to my moving into the care facility in Raalte on September 23, 2019.

I arrived in Raalte at around 1PM, which was a bit earlier than I’d agreed on I believe, but the staff who would be showing me round had just arrived. She showed me my room and let my spouse move my furniture into it. I remember we had some discussions about things that had to be agreed upon. My spouse clearly stated that I couldn’t manage my own meds, as I’d taken two med overdoses when living in our house. The staff had been kind enough to mark the door handles of my room and the living room with tape, so that I could recognize them by touch when wall-trailing.

I also got a short tour of the day center, that is, the group I’d be attending. I remember they had a hand-made banner with “Welcome, Astrid!” on it. The guy who came here in crisis last November also got a welcome banner, but I got nothing when I got here.

In the evening, when the other clients got home from the day center, we had dinner. After that, one of the staff said she was going for a walk with one of my fellow clients. I was tempted to ask whether I could join them, but can’t remember whether I did.

I remember feeling quite a bit in shock when first coming to this care home. I asked my spouse: “You don’t think it’s all stupid, do you?” I referred to the fact that the other residents were severely intellectually disabled. Maybe I’d also noticed the poo smell. This was one of the first things my spouse asked me about when I went to have a look around my current care home. Truthfully though, I don’t care about poo smell if I get proper care.