@loriesco

Thanks for sharing the vignette of how you spent last evening, Lovely.

...and thanks for sharing your wisdom: Life is more manageable when we are willing to accept change" and more pleasurable when we change our perspective and expectations. This is especially true for someone like my husband, George, who has become cognitively impaired.

Instead of viewing "total enjoyment of the moment" as "doing nothing," we need to give ourselves permission to be "complete[ly] distract[ed]" by whatever. Most days, George is extremely distraught, and he asks me throughout the day: "What should I do?" "What should I do?" His illness has rendered him helpless, and he feels completely useless and without purpose.

I try to reassure George that his life is still valuable, and that he doesn't have to "do" anything. (He already raised five children alone, after his first wife died of cancer; and he had a successful career as a college professor.) I tell him that he needs to enjoy the "privilege," as @aloriesco wrote, to just "be in the moment." And I tell him that our lives still have purpose despite the changes in our physical and mental health: We can continue to love and to be loved--and to find new forms of enjoyment. (For example, last evening, I massaged his sore legs and feet by the fireplace, while listening to his favorite: classical music. Then we migrated to our desk top computer, and I played videos of something else he enjoys: military marches.)

Love,
George's Wife