Sixty is not middle-aged. Not even close. Sixty is a reckoning with the truth of mortality, with change, with a new sense of myself as finite.
Sixty is an expanded awareness of time passing. It’s wondering where the years went and, too, marveling at the breadth and depth of the journey — past, present, future. Sixty is standing on a threshold, contemplating the beginning of the end. To reach this place, alive and relatively unscathed, feels like both serendipity and blessing. Sixty is a more respectful understanding of fate. It’s the small but real comfort of being the youngest of the old. Sixty is a chapter between mid-life and old age, a chapter that has no name.
Sixty is twenty times three. Twenty more than forty, which sounds like a lot. And twenty less than eighty, which sounds like too little. It’s a number. Still, I can’t quite believe it’s my number. Sixty on the inside doesn’t feel very different from fifty, but sixty as the age I am now takes some getting used to. Still, sixty is quite different today than it was a generation or two ago. My sixty is not my grandmother’s sixty.
Sixty is facing the fact that my youth really is over. (I thought I’d faced it a while ago, but I guess I hadn’t. Not quite.) It’s coming to fully appreciate that those of us who grow old are the lucky ones. And it’s realizing how little I actually know about getting old. It’s pausing to think of the friends who didn’t make it, who will never be sixty, who are missing these surpassingly lovely autumn days. Sixty is about doing my best to live for them, too. It’s remembering their birthdays and their death days and the togetherness we shared along the way. Sixty is about trying, somehow, to hold on to all the years and ages that came before. It’s about accepting that they’re already gone, sifted through my fingers like sand.
Sixty is a constantly shifting landscape of diminishments and benefits, losses and gains. The losses are dramatic and obvious (think death and beauty) while the gains are often invisible but no less dramatic for that. Sixty is an appreciation for the moment at hand, because I know it won’t last. It’s a greater ease with things as they are, because I know they will certainly change. It’s delight in simple pleasures and other people’s joys and successes. Sixty is less drama and more contentment.
Sixty is the sweetness of waking up in the dark, spooned close to my mate of thirty-one years. It’s stepping outside with the dog into chill morning air just as the sun slips into view. It’s swirling cream into a mug of strong coffee, taking a walk, receiving a hand-written card in the mail. It’s a plane trip to visit a son in grad school and an hour on the porch with my mom, the reassurance of connection, caring, and the long, complicated tapestry that is one family’s history – a tale in which we are but single threads woven through our tiny portion of the vast human whole.
It’s a morning of raking leaves and watching the clouds, skipping the ibuprofen afterwards and feeling the soreness in my tired but still strong body instead. It’s a few silent hours of writing, a sense of satisfaction in having work to do, ideas to wrestle with, and sentences to shape. It’s continuing to believe in the power of words to heal a wound, to close a distance, to make a difference.
Sixty is trying out a recipe from a new cookbook, curling up on the loveseat once the dishes are done, watching a movie, legs stretched out into my husband’s lap. It’s a few minutes of reading before bed. Sixty is a newfound regard for the quotidian. It is realizing that the gift of an ordinary day becomes only more precious with each passing year.
Sixty is two parents in their eighties, two sons who are suddenly closer to thirty than to twenty, and a husband about to turn seventy. It is stopping in my tracks every now and then to wonder, “How did that happen?”
Sixty is about creating fluid relationships with aging parents and with grown children. And sixty is about making room for new connections to flourish. It’s about opening our home and our hearts to a soul daughter who was in search of a family, only to realize that I was also a mother who still longed for a daughter. Sixty is not caring at all about the labels and caring a great deal about the love. It’s living proof that family isn’t always defined by blood, but by affinity and affection, choice and intention.
Sixty is offering an arm to my elderly mother and receiving a helping hand from my youthful daughter. It is marveling at the strength of all these bonds even as I begin to absorb the necessity of one day letting each of them go. It’s about stepping in to steady the older generation and stepping aside to allow members of the younger one to stumble and fall and get up on their feet again. It’s about waiting to see how my mother and father will navigate their final years and how my sons will become the men they are meant to be and whether my husband and I will grow old together, side by side. Sixty is a dance of intimacy and independence, closeness and distance, reaching out and holding back, longing and surrendering. Sixty requires more tact, faith, and compassion than I ever knew I had in me.
Sixty is an ongoing private conversation with the universe. It is a prayer that by some combination of kismet and karma my sons will be blessed with lives that are rich and full and not too painful. It’s a hope that my parents will live out their days in peace and comfort. It is stopping by and hanging out at their kitchen table as often as I can. It is missing them in advance. It is being grateful for every day I still get to be a daughter. Sixty is about feeling my heart lift, always, at the sound of a familiar but fully adult voice on the other end of the phone. It’s knowing from the intonation of just one “Hey, mom,” whether it’s been a good day or a tough one, as surely as I once knew from the tilt of a head or the hunch of a shoulder what kind of day a little boy just had in second grade. Sixty is being grateful every single day that I am still a mother.
Sixty is funerals and weddings. It’s losing loved ones and bearing witness to tender beginnings. It’s showing up to be a steady presence at bedsides and showing up to help launch the young people I’ve known since birth who are suddenly taking marriage vows and starting companies and having babies of their own. It is watching children who once spent every day together, inventing worlds in the backyard, turn into grown ups and scatter like leaves in the wind. It is writing an obituary for a friend who should still be here and a happily-ever-after wish for a young man who, in my mind’s eye, is still a nine-year-old snapping gum on a pitcher’s mound. It is pretty new dancing shoes with heels that aren’t too high and it’s the plain dark skirt hanging at the back of the closet, awaiting its next call to duty. Sixty is gathering to mourn and gathering to celebrate. Sixty is grief and gratitude, sorrow and joy, all tangled up together.
Sixty is flipping through cute outfits on the rack and knowing better than to try them on. It’s being able to say “I’m too old for that” without resentment. Sixty is being done with shopping around. It’s brand loyalty: Jockey underwear, Darn Tough socks, Hoka sneakers. Sixty means arch support, even for flip flops. But it’s also finding out that dressing “my age” means wearing whatever feels good. It’s the freedom to have my own style and to change it by the day. It’s shopping at thrift stores, just as I did in college. Sixty is a stretchy black dress and the confidence to wear it and it’s soft faded jeans broken in by a stranger and silver hoop earrings made just for me by an eighty-eight-year-old friend.
Sixty is never leaving the house without a list. It’s forgetting things even if they’re written down on the list. It’s forgetting to read the list, or to bring the list. It’s about forgetting things that don’t go on lists and remembering things I thought I’d forgotten long ago. It’s leaving a message on a neighbor’s answering machine along with the phone number from the house we haven’t lived in for fourteen years. It’s losing my cell phone and finding it in the refrigerator. It’s losing my reading glasses and finding them on my head. Or worse, it’s losing my glasses, finding them, putting them on, only to realize I’m already wearing a pair. It’s being able to laugh at all these things. It’s rummaging around in the pantry for dinner, or eating cereal, or skipping it. It’s take-out Thai without guilt. It’s going out to dinner just because. It’s the freedom to trash the list.
Sixty is a soft-bristled toothbrush, Sensodyne toothpaste, and a mouthguard at night. Sixty is my husband reminding me that once upon a time we slept naked together even in winter, even in a bedroom with big old windows and bone-chilling drafts, even when we could see our breath. Sixty is a different body thermostat altogether. It’s moisture-wicking pajamas, cozy sleeping socks, and a soft chenille bathrobe that ties at the waist. Sixty is choosing comfy over sexy. But sixty is also, once in a blue moon, the lace bra that lifts and separates, the silky nightgown that looks just fine, the glass of champagne, the jasmine oil.
Sex at sixty is both a waning and a waxing. It is less about need and more about connection, less about desire yet more about intimacy. It’s less often but more intense. Slower and less predictable. Not as athletic but more tender. As much about pleasure in the mind as it is about hunger in the body. (Age is full of surprises. Not all of them are bad.)
Sixty is more dry than juicy. It’s leave-in conditioner, moisturizer twice a day, hand cream in my purse, shea butter for cracking heels, and sunscreen even on cloudy days. (Better late than never.) Sixty is about lubricating. It’s receiving a birthday gift of four different face creams from a lifelong friend along with instructions to “layer.” It’s wrinkles and pouches and unwanted flaps of skin. Sixty is wrinkles. And it’s eternal hope, too. After all, four face creams!
Sixty is no more hair growing in the places I used to shave and brand new hair cropping up in places it never was before. Sixty is keeping tweezers handy and letting the blade on the razor turn to rust. Sixty is a crepey neck and a permanently furrowed brow. It’s a new ability to spot a botoxed forehead from across the room. It’s realizing how many of us are smoothed out between the eyebrows. It’s looking crabby in every photograph, even when I’m happy. Which I am. Mostly.
Sixty has its moments of melancholy. So much is over. There’s no going back. Sixty is the realization that joy doesn’t just happen, I have to choose it again and again. It’s a choice that requires effort sometimes. Sixty is an opportunity to rethink some old ideas. It’s a farewell to a certain kind of ambition and it’s an uncomplicated pleasure in the job at hand – cutting back the garden, stuffing envelopes for a local nonprofit, driving a friend to the doctor, writing a good-enough paragraph. Sixty is time to let go of perfection. Time, also, to give up comparing, worrying, arguing over petty things, and taking slights personally. Sixty means there’s no more time to waste. (Not that there ever was.)
Sixty comes with permission to love my friends more deeply. It’s making the phone call, writing the note, coming up with the plan, making it happen. It’s texting a photo of the sunrise or the salad I made for dinner and getting a sunrise or a pie or a basket of swiss chard in return. It’s not hesitating to say whatever words I need to say: I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I forgive you. I love you. It’s finding the perfect gift and it’s the joy of giving something extravagant to someone who doesn’t expect it.
Sixty is about accepting my limitations. It’s realizing I can’t be all things to all people. It’s speaking the truth and living with the consequences. Sixty is choosing integrity over popularity, which means watching some people walk away and being ok with that. And it’s befriending my own imperfect, less driven, less busy self. A self not so adept at retaining facts but somewhat better at taking the long view. A self who is done with multi-tasking but who turns out to be happier doing one thing at a time slowly and carefully and well. A self who is slower to hurt and anger and quicker to apologize. Less of a grind, but more at ease in her own skin. Less polished and more vulnerable. Less impressive but more honest. Kinder. Or so I hope.
Sixty is an impulse to simplify. It’s looking around and noticing how much of what I have, I’ve ceased to really see. It’s packing stuff away, giving stuff away, throwing stuff away and exhaling into the empty spaces left behind. It’s more trips to Goodwill than to the mall. It’s wondering why I ever thought it was a good idea to collect anything. It’s a box in the basement slowly filling with things that once seemed like reflections of me but are now just things. It’s realizing they were always just things. Sixty is less time spent taking care of things and more time attending to what is ineffable, invisible, intangible. It’s forgiving everyone for everything and traveling a bit more lightly through my own emotional landscape. Sixty is about clearing some space – in a kitchen drawer, in my mind, in my relationships, in my heart.
Sixty is a bit devil-may-care. It’s doing things because I want to rather than because someone else thinks I should. It’s saying no to what doesn’t feel right and yes to the small voice inside that says, “This way.” Sixty is planning a hiking trip to England with a bunch of women and volunteering to teach yoga to women in recovery. It’s discovering that we are more alike than different.
Sixty is a deepening concern for our shared future. It’s a desire to give something back, to make the world a little better while I still can. Sixty is flexible. It’s understanding that information isn’t wisdom, and that wisdom arrives quietly and in its own time, nourished by listening and silence and reflection. Sixty is a greater willingness to compromise, to collaborate, to consider another point of view. Sixty is less about being right and more about being present.
Sixty is daily gratitude for modern medicine and replacement parts. It’s two artificial hips and two four-inch scars and long, pain-free walks. It’s taking nothing for granted: climbing a mountain, carrying groceries, running upstairs, pushing a wheelbarrow, warrior pose. Sixty is still a two-way street, up and down, breaking apart and coming back together again. Sixty is self-care and maintenance. Sixty is strong and able. Sixty is fully alive, awake, and vital. Sixty is also knowing, in the words of the late poet Jane Kenyon, “Someday it will be otherwise.”
Sixty inspires a certain kind of urgency. It is a desire for a life that is both less and more. It’s the end of carrying on as if time were an unlimited resource to be spent and spent and spent. There is no world but this one. No meaning but the meaning I’m willing to create. I have one life and one life only. Though brief, it will have to do. Sixty feels like a nudge in the direction I’ve always wanted to go, a summons to pay closer attention to the way I spend my days, to the things I say and do, to the qualities I still aspire to embody.
Sixty is an invitation to make a deeper kind of peace with impermanence. It’s about rising to the challenges of aging and also embracing the mysteries, wonders, and gifts of growing older. It’s a desire to ripen into wisdom, into goodness, into a woman who may one day be an elder but who is, for now, just another year older. Sixty is knowing today is an occasion, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, and every plan is provisional. Sixty is the beginning of the if-not-now-when decade.
Burn the candle.
Use the china.
Open the wine.
Carpe Omnia.
Seize everything.
60 was my toughest birthday. I read this and nodded at so many things. It made me smile and it made me sad – “youth is over” and never going back. I still long for the strong connected kind of love and wonder if I’ll ever find it (now at 63). It makes me want to write–at 63, on the verge of 64 – “will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64…?”
Beautiful.
Thank you.
Carrie
Absolutely. I’ve been 60 for 7 months now and only now, while reading your words, has The knot in my stomach loosened slightly. It feels like the years separating 38 and 60 should number around 4 but instead, they number 22. This last birthday freaked me out and thank you so so very much for putting into words “why?”. I cannot thank you enough.
My husband just turned sixty. I am sixty five. I decided to throw him a birthday party, to honor those friends who had made a lasting impression on his life, and as a thank you for being part of making him who he has become. It was a wonderful day. We, very rarely take the time out of our busy lives to let those close to us, how much they mean. It was a great gift to celebrate. Thank you for your beautiful essay on turning sixty. I am filled with gratitude every day that I can watch the leaves turn colors, take a walk, even with my five replacement parts (hips, knees &shoulder) and can see to type this tiny print. I’m glad,also, to have you in my life. You are a blessing.
My wife is about to turn sixty and I am not too far behind. This reads like a love story to a life of full, complex, joyful days lived the only way they could be. In the moments. ♡ Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful mind.
The list, the list!!! Yes!!! Happy Birthday!!
Love this! While I’m a few years from turning 60, I have sisters and dear friends who are turning 60. This is such an introspective time — so grateful for my health, my family and my friends.
Happy birthday Katrina! Celebrate BIG and hug your loved ones. You are definitely not your grandma’s 60!
Wishing you the happiest of birthdays. I will be 60 soon and I found myself nodding and agreeing with you. I’ve never had an issue with being a year older but 60 seems different to me. Harder for some reason. Sadder for some strange reason. I have so much left to do though! I’m not a grandma yet. One of my sons has yet to marry. I want to do as much as I can with my elderly parents but they aren’t always up for it. I too rely on my lists and my lists keep getting longer. Life is beautiful, even better as I grow older. Thank you for your beautiful words.
Beautiful and comforting. Thank you
Kimberly
Age 47
Love your wisdom at 60 (although you are a wizard from day 1!). Feliz cumpleaños
Happy Birthday, Katrina!
Love,
Mary Ann
Wow, Katrina, you just blew me out of my comfy chair! June 27 of next year I will be 70. 70! I am feeling and thinking all the things you so beautifully express about 60 but with ten years added. How did this happen? How will I spend the last 10?, 20?, 30? years? There is a sense of urgency and yet a fuller peace with who I am and how I am. Thank you for the gift of your beautiful thoughts. It’s good to know I am not the only one feeling these things, missing dear friends, celebrating grown sons, reveling in grandchildren, wondering when the saggy neck thing happened, aching and moving any way. Sitting in the ER after my fall I thought “these things only happen to old people” and then it hit me- I’m an old people! Nearly wet my pants laughing! Happy Birthday and big hugs from the swamp!
Beautiful! Thank you for continuing to share your wise and poetic words with all of us, such a gift! Happy Birthday
I turn 60 next year and I’ve been dreading it. That is, until I read this. Now, instead, I will try to embrace the birthday. Thank you. The list — done that. The glasses — done that. Also, I was looking for my cell phone the other day while I was talking to my sister on it! My younger sister will not let me forget that — ever. Yes, it is wise to approach these years with a sense of humor.
I turned 47 this past October. In the past couple of years, I have experienced losing three close family members. My connection to time has shifted significantly as I now feel called to live deeply and with intention, I feel deeply mentored by your life and your words–as they are an echoing of my own heart and experience. You continue to show me the way, Katrina. I am so glad you are here. On this planet. In this space. With me.
Your new website is beautiful, by the way. Soothing. Simple. Beautiful. Like you.
I am into the second half of my 60’s and your reflection articulated so many aspects of what I have experienced, thought and felt over the last 6 years…and you have done it in a way that is affirming, non-judgmental and holds the truth in an embrace of grace and dignity. Please give my best to your folks. Whenever you mention them, I recall my years in Milford and what life was like when I was in my 20’s.
Love reading your thoughful words. The passing of time is difficult when recounting the things we have lost or let go, and yet, there is a richness as well, in the things we learn to accept and embrace. Thanks for the reminder to live in the present, and for showing us that we are not alone in the journey.
Dear Katrina,
Perfectly captures what I’ve been feeling since my sixtieth birthday in July. Thank you so much for writing and sharing your thoughts and experiences in such a beautiful way. I feel so lucky to have found you and your books to help guide me along in this wonderful life.
Happy Birthday Dear Katrina. Keep guiding us!
As usual, Katrina, everything stops when I see your name in my Inbox knowing whatever you are sharing will be a deep & honored blessing; you never fail to disappoint. I am over 80 and these words on “turning 60” resonate perfectly as I feel 80 IS the new 60! These ordinary days are far simpler, less busy; thankfully, because there is also less energy.. There is more self-care necessary, as well as wanted…as in “if not now, when?”
I am deeply grateful for you, your beautifully expressed thoughts, feelings & wisdom; may you never stop writing & sharing.
Borrowing the words of one of your commenters above: ” This reads like a love story to a life of full, complex, joyful days lived the only way they could be. In the moments. “
Happy Birthday and welcome to the “60 Club”! I am so grateful for every word in this entry as I nod in tender recognition of the foibles and follies along with those sweet celebrations brought by this transition to a “new age”. I will print a copy of this for safe keeping in my gratitude journal and place it next to the copies of your letter to yourself and the “What Doesn’t Serve” by Danna Faulds from Magical Journey. They are quiet reminders to hang in there, be it good day or bad, and are returned to at just the right moment. I gently smile as I realize it is I who should be gift-giving but that you have once again beautifully wrapped up your gift to me in words of wisdom about the milestone of 60 years with the perfect final flourish of Carpe Omnia. Thank you from my 60-something soul.
Thank you! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and wisdom with us.
Katrina,
Absolutely beautifully written! And as a sixty-six year-old, I could not have said it better.
I have always been a person who saves everything, especially clothing “for good”. As my daughter, granddaughter and I go through my dresser and closet, they ask, “Why haven’t you ever worn or used this or these?” And the answer is, “I was saving them for good.” So now I am wearing and using what I have (and what still fits) because I realize that “good” is now.
Happy birthday, Katrina!
Happy Birthday, Katrina! I loved this piece. I’m on the cusp of my 50th birthday and many of your thoughts and feelings resonated with me. My motto for the past few months has been ‘if now now, when’ – I’ve found it immensely freeing. Thank you for your writing – it always seems to find me at the right time. And, your new website design is perfect – light, airy, welcoming and elegant.
You should print this essay in a small booklet for sale. I would love to buy copies of this for all of my friends as we turn 60. This is beautiful and inspiring. I love your writing so much!
Louise, Love your idea! I second it. I too would buy lots to give out to my friends.
I turned 60 this year and read Katrina’s essay “This Is 60” the night before my birthday …aloud with my husband listening to every word.
I have actually been emailing it to all my friends who turn 60 and shared it on Facebook too.
Katrina just has a way of reaching your soul with her THOUGHT-full writing.
What a great idea! What a lovely gift idea. I definitely would put a few in my cart!
You nailed it! Pleasure to read, like to staring in the mirror👍🏻
Julie
I think you. covered just about everything dear Katrina! I found myself wishing I were reading it all on published paper so I could highlight sentences! Inclusive, self aware, spot on familiar reflections! Thanks for the gift of your words! Again and again!! xoxo
Katrina, Your gift in elevating the ordinary to sacred resonance is amply magnified in this tribute to turning 60 – the inbetween of young and old, the blended space where wisdom trumps innocence. I laughed, I cried, your words evoked such connection to this rich tapestry of life… “a tale in which we are single threads woven through our tiny potion of the vast human whole” – Wow! If that doesn’t tap into the essence of life! Beautifully done… I will treasure and share this gift of your wise words!
Thank you for sharing your inspiring thoughts, truth, wisdom and wit! I found my 64 year old self thinking yes, yes, yes to much of your beautiful essay. What a blessing to be 60!
Happy Birthday!
Thank you for all of this, Katrina, these wonderfully astute observations that so exactly parallel my own experience. Sixty is indeed the decade of “if-not-now-when?” A lot of letting go is required in order to open one’s arms wide enough to hold what is truly dear. There is so much. Happiest of birthdays dear Katrina!
Wow, Katrina, you have captured the essence of this time in our lives so perfectly. I will return to this again and again. It is comforting, reassuring, poignant, insightful, funny and honest. Now I’m going to stop worrying about the crepey skin on my neck! What a gift. Thank you!
Katrina,
I have read this twice and am in tears at my desk, and breathless at the beauty of your words. I’m 44 but so much of this resonates, and deeply. I’m grateful to know such an extraordinary gifted poet of everyday life. In you hands, through your eyes, the ordinary glimmers, and I am more thankful than i can express for the gift of seeing that. Happy birthday.
xox
Katrina,
You have such a gift for expressing life. I’m close to the 80, but I remember all those changes. I’m going to share this with my daughters. You have so eloquently expressed that change in life.
Absolutely gorgeous. Your writing goes deep into the heart and soul; it’s why I call you the ‘soulful writer’.
I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m over 60 when inside I feel like I’m in my 20’s. I’m just (at age 64) beginning to look in the mirror and think “OMG, I really am older.” I often go over the decades and reflect on what was the main thrust of that period. I get a melancholy feeling in my gut when I think about the passage of time, and how everything has it’s time and then moves on. Stores close down after 50 years, buildings become something other than what they were for umpteen years. Now when I hear my OBGYN is retiring after I’ve been with him over 35 years, deep sadness washes over me and I feel a sense of tremendous existential loss; that same sense of melancholy of time passing and the finiteness of everything. What always comes to mind is the words in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time of war, and a time of peace.”
I felt nothing at turning 50 but 60 was another story and each year now is an even bigger one; almost bordering on inconceivable. As they say, what’s the alternative. I’m grateful I’m here to grow older and so far in good health. As my funny friend likes to say, each birthday is one year closer to death – and we laugh because it’s true. I don’t find that morbid; it’s Reality.
I just love everything you wrote and can’t even begin to comment on each part that resonates so deeply. Thank you for this stunning piece – an ode to 60.
Thank you for wonderfully versed feelings echoed in my heart …”the small but real comfort of being the youngest of the old.”
Last year about this time I went on a Rhine River Cruise with a friend. It seemed like now or never because I was turning seventy this year. As I explained this to a lady we met on the trip, she gasped and said, ” You shouldn’t say that.” Apparently she was already there and resented my comment. We had a lovely trip and for the most part was able to keep up the pace. However, this morning while trying to enter my library card number on the website it was rejected. I stared at it for a minute and finally realized it was my credit card number! Maybe I was right to take that trip at sixty-nine. Life is good and you have to laugh to keep from crying. Thanks for a lovely essay.
Thank you for putting into words what many of us feel but haven’t been able to articulate. . Happy birthday and many, many more!
Katrina,
As always what you say is beautifully said! It made me reflect on turning 60, two years ago when I decided it was my time to do something I wanted to do but put on hold to nurture and raise five sons, the youngest now a junior in college. One is married and made me a grandmother last year to a beautiful little girl! Finally, a girl for me and I a month before she was born, I decided to go back to school to do a graduate program that I had put on hold for years!
I am still working and plan to keep working as a librarian for the foreseeable future. I am hoping to start a brand new assignment working with teens in January and I am really looking forward to it. Being in school alongside classmates my children’s’ ages has been so wonderful and invigorating for me and I feel as though I am up to the next opportunity to make a difference in the lives of young people.
That said, so much of what you shared resonated with me: getting rid of things, simplifying our lives, enjoying the times spent with my husband now that we are finally empty nesters. I am appreciating so much the rock of support and encouragement he has been to me over these past 38 years of marriage. I feel so blessed and take pleasure in the little things. Just this past Monday I enjoyed a breathtaking sunrise and took a photo to share with my sisters! So much to be thankful for and so much to still experience as long as God gives me life. The joy of grandparenting is hard to explain. I am looking forward to many more little ones who will call me grandma :).
Thanks, Katrina for always helping us to appreciate the “gifts of ordinary days”
Blessings,
HG
I thoroughly enjoyed this, all the more so because it was so NOT political. Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve read your posts because I find myself avoiding all things politic; although I couldn’t being myself to unsubscribe. It was so nice to just be able to read and enjoy and relate. This tells me there are things to look forward to at 60, gives me things to ponder now at 53, and reminds me how quickly this time will pass. It is definitely time to burn the candle but maybe not use the china; if Im truly seizing life I won’t be eating off that ugly pattern!
Dear Katrina, Happy Birthday! Sixty is when it feels as if the clock suddenly begins ticking faster and faster, when we deepen our appreciation for every extraordinary moment of every ordinary day. I have fallen back on your your beautiful meditations about life to guide me through the past three decades. Once again, it feels as if we are on exactly the same page. What a gift to have your company on the journey.
Katrina, I love your writing and insights. However girl, I just have to tell you that 60 is just a number. Like the big 3-0. Like 40. Like 50. And now it is 60. Rejoice each day that you have your life’s love to snuggle up with each night. Rejoice that you raised two wonderful sons. Rejoice that you still have your parents. Rejoice that you write amazing blogs. Just take a deep breath and embrace this next amazing decade.
Trust me, it will be GREAT.
Susan H., “RENEGADE” (ask your Mom)?
Ooh, Katrina.. I just want to hug you and say.. yes! If I was on a deserted island, I would bring you, berries, and chocolate..
Love,
Karine
Katrina, my friend….beautiful and brilliant. Thank you for turning 60 so that your reflections can be an infinite source of wisdom and humor for all of us. Also, I now have the perfect gift to give every friend turning 60. I will just print this and wrap it up in a bow. Well done!
I turn sixty in December and I can so relate to your written words. I have found myself really reflecting on so many of the topics you have covered here. I’m feeling the consequences of being part of the “sandwich generation”, between aging parents and grown married children. I wouldn’t want to change a thing, but feel more of an urgency to figure out my purpose in these upcoming years and going for my dreams while I still can. I have felt much loss over the past few years of dearest friends and family. I never realized how much their love and influence effected my daily life. I miss them so. So at this point I don’t want to squander my time, but really figure out to use each of my moments with as much love, compassion and kindness I can. I appreciate your eloquent relatable words. As always I appreciate that you take the time to write and share them.
Cheers to Sixty and many more!
I remember reading your article, “This is 55” not too long ago. You ended your writings with an awesome insight, “Fifty-five is the joy of waking up each day and taking part in this great, ongoing human conversation. It is mystery.”
You have engaged well in your last 5 years. Now having arrived at 60, the “ongoing human conversation” continues as it takes you to 70 and beyond. By the way, it is still a mystery!
13 months stand between me and my own 60. I too have learned to meander down life’s journey of waking up daily with joy and consciously be a partaker of this “great ongoing human conversation.”
Thank you for all your sharing through the years. Blessed birthday Katrina!
Katrina,
I join the chorus in celebrating this piece. These are the most beautiful, thoughtful, poignant words on time and aging ever written. Recently turned seventy-two…yes to all of this!
When I turned 60 I gave myself a special birthday present, training for and accomplishing a 50 mile charity bike ride to the Jersey shore with my youngest son and his girlfriend. I could not have done that when I was 50. I felt like I was on cloud 9! Sixty is only a number but does make me want to be kinder to my mind and body. I embrace life for fully and really can’t wait to see what is around the next corner.
So beautiful, as always my friend <3
Thank you so much for writing this. I just turned 58 and while I’m happy to be here and have a good life, I think a little about the number and how it keeps creeping up. I have 2 boys 25 and 23 and 2 girls 19 and 17. We will be married 28 yrs. this month. I so enjoy my kids and am so thankful that we are all close. This year is hard for me with my baby a senior now. I have loved your writing for several years and I think I will be relating even more. Thank you again.
Hi Katrina — Your writing touches much in me. It helps me understand not only myself, especially as I get older, but the world in general. I passed 60 several years ago but much, if not all, of what you’ve written in this post I’ve nodded my head at; and still feel as I move through my sixth decade. My late Mother used to say, “age is just a number” and I try to think of this on days in which I feel otherwise; which are few and far between I am happy to say. I’m slowly make my way through “Moments of Seeing” and I love the quote by Henry Drummond, “You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.” So very, very true. Thank you for a lovely post about being 60 and then some.
I love this. It’s like 60 is giving permission.Permission to be ourselves. A reminder that 60 is wonderful.
60 was tough. But here I am at 74, and it’s OK. I couldn’t help reading your post and thinking I could apply all you said to being my current age. Life continues to evolve, change and grow. Time marches on and lets make the best of the here and now. Thank you for all your thoughtful words.
Marty
Katrina, I felt nothing you mentioned at age 60, but I turn 70 in January and it is all hitting me in the face. I’ve had a true realization that I”m on the “down hill side” and it’s up to me whether I slide the rest of the way or make my way carefully and by choice. I pick the latter. There are so many realizations at this age that it can become overwhelming if you let it. I have really spent a lot of time thinking back to past relationships, wondering how those individuals are doing, and having a desire to reconnect with some. A couple of years ago I connected with my roommate from my freshman year in college after not seeing each other for 50 years. How sweet! A bridge was instantly built from the past to the present! Thank you for so eloquently putting into words the feelings that so many of us are experiencing.
I don’t even have the words to say how beautiful this is. THANK YOU so much for sharing your beautiful heart. I am 62 and of course can relate to all of this. I want to print a copy for every friend I have.
Thank you so much for putting what I’m approaching into words. At 57, I often feel as if my journey and existence are overlooked. This essay captures the reality of aging rather than focusing on returning to our former selves. In a culture that values youth over experience, that’s hard to find.
Tears streaming down my face.
Love this! As I approach my 62nd birthday I am comforted by your wise words, and embrace my luck to (still) be among “the youngest of the old.” Happy Birthday!
Katrina, I always look forward to your wise and wonderful words. I’m more than a decade older than you yet your words still ring so true to me. I sit in the present with profound gratitude for the lessons and hard knocks life has tossed my way. Thank you for softening the edges.
And, Sixty is writing an incredible email on the spur of a moment Katrina.
I turn 80 this week and gratitude percolates into my every spur of the moment. Like you, I love Ann Patchett who is the reason I can say I’m a published author. In honor of my birthday I have treated myself to a signed copy of The Dutch House and will start reading it on that day. And give thanks there are writers like you and Ann to inspire readers like us. May you live forever! Happy Birthday.
I feel honored to have been aging with you through each of your books as you’ve articulated the essence of my own days. You’re a gift, Katrina. Thank you.
Just to let you know all your thoughts, hopes and dreams will still be the same if the universe lets you continue on as it has me . At 83 my thoughts are just the same ,still working at grasping all the moments, living the life granted to me. Love to read everything you write. What a way with words you have!
Thank you.
In two days I turn 60. I’ve been struggling to find the words to articulate what I’m feeling. By naming what has ended and what continues, you get to the heart of the matter. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I’m so glad you found your way here,, and that these reflections resonated with you!