Transcription
You think you have time. You think 60 is the new 40 or whatever nonsense they are selling now. You think because you feel relatively healthy and your mind is still sharp and your life is finally settling into something manageable, you have decades stretching out ahead of you like a lazy Sunday afternoon. You do not.
I am 92 years old. I have been alive since Franklin Roosevelt was president. I have buried my husband, my parents, two siblings, and more friends than I can count. And I am here to tell you that your 60s are not the beginning of your golden years. Your 60s are your last real chance to prepare for everything that comes next. And everything that comes next is harder than you think.
I was a high school guidance counselor in Pittsburgh for 38 years. I retired when I was 70, which means I spent my 60s winding down a career, helping my kids through their own midlife struggles, and starting to think about what came next. I thought I was prepared. I had saved money. I had plans. I had a husband I loved and children who called regularly and grandchildren who lit up when I walked in the room. I was not prepared for any of it. I was not prepared for my body to start betraying me in ways I could not fix. I was not prepared for the loneliness that comes when your friends start dying faster than you can process each loss. I was not prepared for my husband of 63 years to drop dead in a hardware store on a Tuesday afternoon while I was home making a grocery list. I was not prepared for the terror of a stroke, of waking up in a hospital, unable to move my left side, of realizing I could no longer live alone.
So, this is not a video from someone who figured it out. This is a video from someone who wishes she had been warned. And if you are in your 60s right now, consider this your warning.
Lesson number one, your body is about to change in ways you cannot reverse, and you need to build strength now while you still can. When I was 62, I could walk three miles without thinking about it. I could carry groceries up the stairs. I could get down on the floor to play with my grandchildren and get back up again without help. I took all of that for granted because it had always been true. By 75, walking a mile was an accomplishment. By 80, I needed to rest halfway up the stairs. By 84, a stroke took what was left of my independence.
Here is what nobody tells you. The muscle you lose after 60 is almost impossible to get back. The bone density you lose is gone forever. The balance you had naturally starts requiring conscious effort. And if you do not actively fight against this decline, if you do not exercise and move and challenge your body while it can still respond, you are going to spend your 80s and 90s trapped in a body that cannot do what your mind wants it to do. I watch my great grandchildren run across the yard and I remember when I could run. I remember when my legs were strong and my back did not ache and standing up from a chair was not an athletic event. That woman feels like a stranger now. I wish I had treated her body better. I wish I had built more strength when I had the chance. If you are 62 and you can still walk three miles, walk three miles. Every day. Build the strength now because you are going to need it.
Lesson number two, your friends are going to start dying and you need more of them than you think. I had a close group of four women I had known since my 30s. We called ourselves the Tuesday girls because we met for lunch every Tuesday for almost 40 years. Barbara, Eileene, Margaret, and me. We raised our children together. We supported each other through divorces and cancer scares and the deaths of our parents. I thought those friendships would last forever. Barbara died in 2008, heart attack. She was 75. Eileen died in 2014, cancer. She was 81. Margaret died in 2020. Co. She was 87. I am the only Tuesday girl left. I did not make new friends in my 60s. I thought I had enough. I thought Barbara and Eileene and Margaret would be there until the end. I did not realize the end would come for them so much sooner than it came for me. Now I am 92 and most of the people who knew me when I was young are gone. My daughter is wonderful. My grandchildren visit when they can. But it is not the same as having a friend who remembers what you were like at 35. It is not the same as having someone who knew your parents, who came to your wedding, who held your babies. Make friends in your 60s, younger friends, older friends, new friends, any friends. Cast a wide net because you have no idea who will still be alive in 20 years. The loneliness of outliving everyone you love is something I would not wish on anyone.
Lesson number three, have the conversations about death and money now while everyone is still healthy enough to have them. When my mother was 89, she had a stroke that left her unable to speak. She lived another 3 years and we had no idea what she wanted. Did she want to be kept alive on machines? Did she want aggressive treatment or comfort care? Where was her will? What were the passwords to her accounts? We spent those three years guessing, fighting with each other, making decisions in the dark. I swore I would not do that to my children and I almost did anyway because talking about death is uncomfortable because nobody wants to sit down with their kids and say here is what I want you to do when I am dying. Here is where the money is. Here is who gets what. It feels morbid. It feels premature. It feels like you are inviting death into the room. But death is coming whether you invite it or not. And if you do not have these conversations while you can still have them, you are leaving a mess for the people who love you. I finally had the conversation with Lisa and Michael when I was 74. I should have done it at 64. I should have done it the moment I had grandchildren and realized there were people who would be affected by my death. Do not wait until you are sick. Do not wait until there is a crisis. Have the conversation now.
Lesson number four. Retirement will not save you. It will expose you. I spent my whole career looking forward to retirement. No more early mornings, no more difficult students, no more paperwork. I was going to travel and garden and read all the books I had been putting off. I was going to finally have time. I retired at 70 and I fell apart. I did not know who I was without my job. For 38 years, I had been Mrs. Castello, the guidance counselor. That was my identity. That was my purpose. And suddenly, I was just Lorraine, an old woman with nothing particular to do and nowhere particular to be. It took me three years to find myself again. Three years of feeling useless and lost before I discovered that I love painting watercolors, that I love volunteering at the library, that I love having lunch with my daughter on a Tuesday for no reason. But those three years were dark. Anthony was worried about me. My children were worried about me. I was worried about me. If you are in your 60s and your job is your whole identity, you are heading for a cliff. Start building a life outside of work now. Develop hobbies. Maintain friendships. Figure out what you love besides your paycheck. Because the day you retire, you are going to need something to be. And if you have not built that something, you are going to be nothing.
Lesson number five, you have less time with your spouse than you think, and most of it will not be the healthy, active years you are imagining. Anthony and I were married 63 years. That sounds like a lot. It is a lot, but when I do the math, it breaks my heart. The first 20 years we were young and building a life and raising children. We were so busy we barely had time for each other. The next 15 years included that terrible period when we almost divorced and then the hard work of rebuilding. It was not until our 50s that we had a truly good marriage. And by then we had maybe 30 years left together. Of those 30 years, 10 were healthy and active. We traveled. We enjoyed our grandchildren. We had energy and curiosity and functional bodies. Then Anthony started slowing down. Then I had my stroke. The last 10 years of our marriage, we were managing decline. Doctor's appointments and medications and the slow narrowing of what we could do together. I am not saying those years were not good. They were. I would give anything to have Anthony back, even in a wheelchair, even confused, even dying. But I wish I had understood in my 60s that the window for adventure was closing. I wish we had taken more trips, stayed out later, said yes to more invitations. I wish I had not assumed we had unlimited healthy years ahead. You do not. Nobody does. Use the good years while you have them.
Lesson number six, forgive everyone now because later you will not have the chance. My brother Frank and I did not speak for eight years. It was a stupid fight over our mother's care, over money, over things that seemed so important at the time. I was 67 when we stopped talking. I was convinced I was right. I was convinced he owed me an apology. Frank died of a heart attack at 79. He died while we were still not speaking. And now I will never get to tell him I am sorry. I will never get to hear his voice again. I will never get to sit across from him at a holiday table and roll my eyes at the same family stories we had heard a hundred times. Eight years of silence for what? For pride. For being right, for refusing to be the one who reached out first. If there is someone you are not speaking to, someone you love who hurt you or who you hurt, pick up the phone today. Not tomorrow, not next week, today. Because people die and they do not wait for you to be ready. They do not wait for the right moment or the perfect apology. They just go and they take your chance with them.
Lesson number seven, your adult children do not need your advice. They need your presence. I spent my 60s giving my children advice about their careers, their marriages, their parenting. I had 38 years of experience as a guidance counselor. I knew things. I had wisdom to share. They did not want my wisdom. They wanted me to show up and be their mother, not their counselor. They wanted me to hold their babies and eat dinner at their tables and ask about their lives without trying to fix anything. Every time I offered unsolicited advice, I was telling them I did not trust them to figure it out themselves. It took me until my 70s to learn to keep my mouth shut, to listen without solving, to be present without controlling. And by then I had damaged my relationship with Michael so badly that we spent seven years not speaking. Your adult children are adults. They do not need you to tell them what to do. They need you to love them while they figure it out. That is harder than giving advice, but it is what they actually need.
Lesson number eight, write things down because you are going to forget everything. I have 11 grandchildren and six great grandchildren. I cannot remember all their birthdays without looking at the list I keep in my nightstand. I cannot remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. I cannot remember conversations I had last week. This is normal. This is what happens to every brain that lives long enough. But it is terrifying. And if you do not prepare for it, you will lose things that matter. Write down your memories. Write down your family stories. Write down the recipes your mother taught you and the way your father laughed and the name of your first dog. Write down what you want your grandchildren to know about who you were before you were old. I started keeping a journal when I was 78. I wish I had started at 60. I have lost so many memories that I cannot get back. Memories that only existed in my head and are now gone forever. Do not let that happen to you.
Lesson number nine. You are going to be scared and courage is doing it anyway. I was terrified of getting old, terrified of losing Anthony, terrified of being alone, of being sick, of being dependent. I spent my 60s trying not to think about it, as if ignoring my fear would make it go away. It did not go away. Everything I was afraid of happened. Anthony died. I had a stroke. I lost my independence. I live with my daughter now because I cannot live alone. Every fear came true and I am still here. I am still me. I still laugh at my granddaughter's jokes and look forward to my great grandson's visits and enjoy a good cup of coffee in the morning. The things I feared did not destroy me. They changed me. They diminished me in some ways, but they did not end me. You are going to face loss and decline and death. You cannot avoid it. But you can face it with courage instead of denial. You can prepare for it instead of pretending it will never come. And when it comes, you can discover that you are stronger than you thought.
Lesson number 10, and this is the one I need you to hear. The last 30 years go faster than the first 60. I blinked and I was 70. I blinked and I was 80. I blinked and Anthony was dead and I was 90. And then 92. And now I am sitting here wondering where it all went. When you are young, time moves slowly because everything is new. When you are old, time moves fast because you have seen it all before. The seasons blur together. The years collapse into each other. You wake up one morning and realize a decade has passed and you cannot account for it. I am not saying this to frighten you. I am saying this so you pay attention. Pay attention to your 60s. Pay attention to your 70s. Pay attention to every single day because it is going faster than you think and you cannot slow it down and you cannot get any of it back.
My husband Anthony died 6 years ago. 63 years together and then he was gone in 45 minutes. A stroke in the plumbing aisle of the hardware store. That is where they found him. Surrounded by PVC pipes and copper fittings. He was a plumber for 40 years. He would have thought that was funny. I talk to him every night before I fall asleep. I tell him about my day. I tell him about the grandchildren. I tell him I miss him. He does not answer, but I keep talking anyway. Because that is what love becomes, a conversation with someone who is not there anymore.
I am 92 years old. I have a photograph of Anthony on the shelf behind me. I have outlived almost everyone I have ever loved. And if I could go back to my 60s, if I could sit across from that woman who thought she had all the time in the world, I would grab her by the shoulders and I would say, "Listen to me." It goes fast, faster than you can imagine. So pay attention. Be present. Say, "I love you." Take the trip. Make the call. Forgive the grudge because one day you will be 92 and alone in your daughter's living room talking to a camera, hoping that someone out there hears you before it is too late. Do not waste your 60s the way I wasted mine. You still have time, but not as much as you think.