I'm not entirely sure what I'm asking here- just some thoughts and insight would be good.
DM is in her early 70s. I'm helping her move house for the first time in about 45 years, so I appreciate this is a massive upheaval.
The thing I can't get my head around is her attitude to change. She has explicitly said on several occasions and in different contexts that she likes change and finds it exciting. I just see zero evidence of this in her attitudes and in fact to me she seems very resistant to change.
Some examples:
Wearing clothes out beyond the point of sensible frugality- to the point they are so torn and full of holes they are virtually indecent (despite having a bulging wardrobe full of new things I've bought her over the years).
Saying that she won't shop at X place and I shouldn't do so either because they gave her bad service. When pressed she will acknowledge that the incident of bad service was over 20 years ago and she hasn't tried them again since. Even when there are no alternatives nearby so she complains of having nowhere to buy that specific thing.
Letting antique furniture get more and more damaged rather than take it for repair because she will do it at some point in the future. Likewise, complaining that she had never liked X in her house but doing nothing to change it since it was put in in the 70s.
Always critical and resistant to new technology such as getting a tumble dryer when she was no longer able to manage putting things on the line.
It's not a new thing. We very rarely did anything out of our normal routine when I was a child. I'm not sure what I am really asking here. She has seemed to be quite depressed about the move and I wonder if it would it be helpful to try to get her to acknowledge that even if maybe she likes the idea of change as a hypothetical concept that in reality it is something that scares her or that she dislikes and is resistant to. If she can acknowledge her true feelings then maybe she wouldn't feel so down at the prospect of the move?