I come from a long line of people with multiple interests. Both sides of my family are creators. My mother and grandmothers knit, crochet, craft, cook, bake, read for pleasure and to learn new things. My dad’s creativity leaned toward building. It seemed that he could make anything out of spare parts.

In my house growing up being bored wasn’t an option. There was always something either fun or necessary to do and it was our own responsibility to find it and keep ourselves entertained. If we whined about being bored Mom would offer to let us help her with housework… moral of the story, we always found something to do.

Jim is a different animal. He was raised as an only child. He lived in the city so all he had to do was go out on his front porch and he had a friend to play with. Jim was never a maker or an ideas man. From what I can tell from his stories from growing up, he was the guy that went along with his friends. It doesn’t sound like he was ever the instigator.

I think that mindset has played a part in the way his Dementia has developed. His mother also had the disease but like my family, she was always busy and could do whatever she put her hand to.

In contrast, Jim sits all day and thinks. He’s never been a reader and has no interest in getting involved in the community now that his children are grown. He used to coach and manage his kid’s various teams so being a mentor could have been an option when he retired. But aside from going to the gym twice a week, he’s chosen to spend his time alone. Now that he isn’t comfortable cooking, he’s lost the busywork of preparing food for supper.

Withdrawal is part of the process of mental decline. Jim cocooned himself long before Dementia became a topic of conversation. This left him very little left to withdraw from. He doesn’t keep his mind active and therefore seems to be at least five years ahead of his mother’s progression.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed him losing interest in sports.

To understand how drastic this is, Jim lived for sports. Sports was all that he was interested in watching – seriously, the TV was only on for Sports, News (if there wasn’t a game on) and NCIS reruns. That’s it, that’s all.

When we got together, I had to make a choice. I could learn enough about sports to enjoy watching them with Jim or go to the other room and watch something else. Since that didn’t seem to be much of a relationship, I adopted sports as our common ground.

Once he retired, his schedule was set in stone, turn on the TV at 2 for Tim and Sid and that would roll into a panel discussion or some countdown of the greatest plays and then the pregame show of what was coming that evening. If there wasn’t a game on TV we’d watch the evening news and then watch the channel with NCIS reruns.

Then he stopped watching hockey. He claimed it was too frustrating to watch those clowns on the ice. Then the CFL started to irritate him and he scaled back on watching. Now, even when there is a game on TV, I come home to the evening news most nights. Last night he informed me that he’d stopped watching Tim and Sid. Opting instead to watch Dr. Phil (seriously!?) and then Dr. Oz and Ellen (at least she’s uplifting – I’m okay with her show).

I don’t know if it’s because Dr. Phil is matching his general ‘people are idiots’ vibe, or if it’s that Tim and Sid has become too fast for him to follow along with and he’s getting frustrated because he’s actually interested in the topic and can’t keep up.

Maybe it’s easier on his self-worth to lose track of a conversation on Dr. Phil because he doesn’t care instead of not being able to follow a commentary about something he’s actively trying to comprehend.