Eightysomethings: Letting Go, Aging Well, Finding Unexpected Happiness w/ Katharine Esty

Jane: 0:05

Hi, I'm Jane Leder, host of Older Women and Friends. You know, when it comes right down to it, I find aging to be a complex affair Highs, lows and everything in between. But as I see it, the one constant is change and the key is how we adjust, how we transition. Do we start a new career, write that book we've had rolling around in our heads for years, move to warmer climes to be near our grandchildren, continue teaching or researching or coaching other women, or do we just hang out, travel and have a good time? The guests on Older Women and Friends have many stories to tell, to share, about what they've been up to and what they've learned along the way. So turn up the volume and join me on Older Women and Friends.

Jane: 1:15

A feature piece in the New York Times titled Dr Bob 75 knows aging's toll. Aging's toll. What about the good stuff? Shame on the New York Times for giving so much space to a biased, depressing view of getting older that focuses only on physical challenges but says nothing about wisdom, skills and interests of those 70 plus. So it is my good fortune and yours that I had already scheduled an episode with Catherine Etsy, a psychotherapist, social psychologist and author of 80-somethings a practical guide to letting go, aging well and finding unexpected happiness. For some of us, turning 80 is right around the corner. For others, 80 might seem a lifetime away. But no matter your age, listening to the stories of older women and the wisdom they've earned can be instructive and uplifting. Catherine Etsy will celebrate her 90th birthday later this year and for her, being in your 80s doesn't mean that you have to focus on survival. It is, she says, a time to enjoy a full life with people we love. I'm honored and excited to welcome Catherine Etsy to Older Women and Friends. Hello, catherine.

Katharine: 2:54

Hello Jane, I'm delighted to be with you here today and to talk about both older women and wisdom. And to talk about both older women and wisdom. And I can start maybe with my 80th birthday, which is now a long time ago. But it was a crossroads time for me, which is a story I tell in my book. I went on a hike with my grandkids. It was a little mountain and I couldn't make it up there.

Katharine: 3:24

When I got to the end of it I had to sit down on a stump and it was like a really a reckoning moment for me when I realized, oh, I am old and I kind of went into a funk. So I was in that funk for a couple of months until I started thinking well, somebody must know how to do this right. And so I started interviewing people in their 80s, because I had known one person that seemed to do it well. So, anyway, I interviewed 128 people and that process which became my book 80-somethings, but the process of talking in depth to 128 80-year-old people rich, poor, black, white I had men and women in my sample, but the people were doing so many interesting things. So I became so excited with my new project and it brought me back to life and it changed my life.

Jane: 4:33

As I learned, there was so much good news about being older, being in your 80s, as it was for our grandparents, and the world and everyday life have gone under countless changes. I wonder if you can talk about that.

Katharine: 4:50

Yeah, I mean when I lived with it, saw my grandparents I had two grandparents that old age as being really full of limitations and disabilities. So I had no interest in being older as I grew up. But what I found from my interviews were just the opposite that despite the many changes in the world and we certainly are confronted with change on all sides luckily aging has also changed, and this is where it gets tough. People still hold on to old stereotypes and old beliefs and almost everybody nobody says oh, I can't wait to be 90. People dread growing old, 90. People dread growing old. And so I've really. Now I'm trying to get across the word that there is so much good stuff going on and that people need to learn about what the reality of aging is like. And you know, I believe that most people in their 80s are living lives that are active and pain-free and besides that, they do a ton of interesting things.

Jane: 6:09

Well, I know that you were born in 1934, and you said that the expectancy of life in the US at that time, or life expectancy, was 65. Today it's 78.

Katharine: 6:27

And much higher for women.

Jane: 6:29

Much higher for women and so that's so encouraging. I know I give a fist pump in the air and squeal out loud when I hear about women and men whose lives are extending well into their 80s and beyond, and it gives me great enthusiasm and excitement, just like it did for you. You did mention nobody is excited. They don't walk around saying, wow, I'm going to be 90. And you did mention that when you asked a group of readers to describe old people, they came up with some of those stereotypes. And what are some of those stereotypes about people in their 80s plus?

Katharine: 7:17

Weak, boring, cranky, kind of slow, not enjoying their lives, and kind of a frail not able to learn anymore. They say you know you can't teach an old dog new tricks, rigid. You know there's a lot of negatives. There is one or two positives, like wise, but they get drowned out usually by the negatives.

Jane: 7:44

You mentioned that there were one or two positive stereotypes that exist for older people.

Katharine: 7:52

What are they? And that, I think, is one that you mentioned already of being wise, and some people think that old people can be sweet and kind, and I think kind is a really good one to be. Yeah.

Jane: 8:07

So sweet and kind, All right, and you interviewed some really interesting people and I have read a chunk of your book and I highly recommend it and there are wonderful stories. You write kind of the way I do, which is doing a lot of interviewing and then integrating what people have to say with some of your own observations and I'm what were some of these 80-somethings doing? That may go against the stereotypes but certainly give the rest of us a lot of confidence, a lot of faith in the aging process named Patty, and she had had a very hard life.

Katharine: 8:49

She had financial problems, she was divorced, her son had just died that year. But what she told me was how much she loved being in her 80s and how wonderful it was. She loved to wake up every morning and say what am I going to do today? She had a garden that she worked in, she had friends that she saw at a council on aging, and so what I learned from her was one of my early lessons was, despite setbacks and bad things happening, she was happy, she was living a fulfilled life, and so I began to see that one's happiness, one's enjoying one's life, does not depend on not having any failures or tragedies or losses. And you know, I've remembered that ever since, and that's just one of my prime lessons that I take with me.

Jane: 9:54

To be grateful for what it is that we have. I know I've started to say I'm vertical, so I'm still standing, I'm still walking. Well you know, let's talk about loss because certainly people in their 80s experience a lot of loss, whether it's with a spouse, dear friend, whatever it might be. And my question is how do you juggle the positive attitude that you just expressed with these losses?

Katharine: 10:30

Well, you know, that's a really good question and I think it's something that people don't understand very well. Our culture likes to just sweep losses. We don't know how to talk about it and we don't know how to manage it in our own lives. I mean, it's not just losses of people, which happens a lot in the 80s, but the other losses, like losses of mobility, losses of hearing losses, of having to go on a walker, for instance. It can be a huge loss. And what I think we need to share, and I think about a lot, is the importance of learning how to manage the loss, grieve the loss, and that there's lots of these small losses, like I can't open jars very well, and that's a tiny loss, but it's stupid. When you have to ask somebody to open up your applesauce jar, you feel, oh, that can't beat me, I'm able to do things. You know so, and I think what happens that's good and makes it easier to mourn the losses is. But I do believe I'll just say first that managing the losses that we have, managing them well, is the secret to really aging well, and that if you don't know how to mourn and be sad and grieve, you're not going to be able to ride through a really smooth old age. So that's important.

Katharine: 11:55

But there's this thing called the paradox of aging. That is so that's important, but there's this thing called the paradox of aging. That is one of the realities, I think, is that even after we've had so a lot of losses, that what happens as we age is we begin to see the other side. You know you were saying, thank goodness I'm breathing. But you know that thought doesn't occur to you when you're 17. Of course you're breathing, but as we age we'll suddenly see the other side of it. At some point you have that thought my goodness, I am so grateful to be alive. But that doesn't come until later in life and we all get it at different ages. So this paradox of aging is that in spite of the losses we might have I mean I've lost a beloved husband and then I had a new love for five, the last five years who just died about a few months ago.

Jane: 12:48

Oh, I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, yeah, I've had a lot of losses.

Katharine: 12:52

But I also have.

Jane: 12:54

It makes me grateful for the friends here that have been kind and all the things that I do have grieving. It should be done and gone as quickly as possible. You are not supposed to, one year hence or 10 months less, still be grieving, still be mourning, and I'm wondering how that impacts the whole process. I know how important it is. As you've just said, it's important to grieve and then also to move on.

Katharine: 13:42

Right. But I think you're right, you can't rush it. Everybody's different and I don't think I'll ever stop grieving, either my husband, john, or my new love, peter that you know. I think about them every day, but I do think people that get stuck and aren't able to enjoy the things because they're grieving so much that people need some help, and I think that's where I think friends come in. But I don't think you can be hurried, I think you have to be where you are and everybody that's still mourning two years, five years I know that when I interviewed people it was interesting anyone that had lost a child when they were young they're still grieving.

Katharine: 14:21

So there's some things you just don't get over, and so I think we need to educate ourselves this is really an education thing that the grieving process varies from person to person and that we all have our own timetables and that we need to do what we need to do. But we also need help from others. We're not in this alone, and I think that's one of the skills of being older is to be able to get help from other people and also it has to do with surrounding ourselves with friends.

Jane: 14:52

And I know, on the one hand, our circle of friends shrinks Certainly mine has as a late 70-year-old and I'm sure, as I get older. As you mentioned, we lose partners, we lose friends, we lose family members and acquaintances, and yet the need to be surrounded by people who are supportive and love us and are optimistic about who we are, and I would wonder I think that I read you have some tips for making new friends. In fact, let me backtrack and say that I was really surprised to read in one of your blogs that it said that it becomes even more important to have friends that are not family. I'm not saying that correctly, it should. I'll say it.

Katharine: 15:48

The blog starts out that many people say that friends become even more important than family, and I think that means I mean, I don't think that's absolutely true, but it suggests that friends become much more important than other phases of life, because I think in middle age people are so busy with their family and their kids they really don't have time for friends.

Katharine: 16:11

But what happens my age is that we have lots of time for friends and that the people that we and we lose friends. As you said, that this is the normal, so that you need to be in contact with your old friends and keep up with them, but also you need to keep making friends, and that's one of the skills I think and I did just write this blog about friendship and gave some tips about how we need to keep reaching out and making new friends that it's one of the great pleasures available to us as older people to spend we can have time for lunches and teas and walks and talks and that all of these leisurely activities that we didn't have time for we may be able to fit in now into our daily life.

Jane: 16:57

And correct me if I'm wrong, but did you break friends into a couple of different categories? I did.

Katharine: 17:06

I said we all need a couple of different kinds of friends and this carries through, especially at our age. Now we need friends that are helpers, that you know when we have to like yesterday I had to go get. I had a loner car because I had a bumper, you know, a small accident but in the car had to go in the shop so I needed to get somebody to take me to get my pick up my car. So we need helpers. Then we need confidants that when we're feeling low and mourning and in tears, we need people that we're close to, and that's very important. And then we need friends that we play with, that, we hang out with that, we talk with that, the ones we have lunch with and play ping pong with or whatever we do so. And then I have, as I get older.

Katharine: 17:52

Now I found out that there's another kind of friend, and I have several of them that go way back in time, and I have a friend that I was in nursery school with.

Katharine: 18:01

Oh wow, but just yesterday we talked and we always laugh at how we ran away from kindergarten, believe it or not, and we were just a teacher, just ran across the street to the country and we laugh at what naughty little girls we were.

Katharine: 18:17

So these old friends, you can talk about the same things each time and laugh at them, and laugh at the naughty little girls we were. So these old friends, you can talk about the same things each time and laugh at them, and laugh at the old jokes. And I was just in Virginia with a couple friends that we had the bill died and so I was down at a memorial service and he was one that we'd talk on the phone with him and he would tell the same old stories and we would just howl and so anyway. So that friend I call a forever friend, these old friends from school or childhood or whatever. And they give us so much pleasure now with Zoom and phones. And I do think we need many friends and many kinds of friends, and some people are able to be in all those categories, but not many.

Jane: 18:59

So I have people that I walk with and people that I talk with People that you sing with and people that you dance with. Yeah, yeah, I have been talking about the importance of friendship several times on my podcast and I was just curious what kind of tips do you have to offer? I find that, yes, I want to make new friends, but I'm not exactly sure how Well.

Katharine: 19:30

I think that I don't have that article right in front of me, but I can make a stab at it here. I think that the first thing is to recognize that your friendship group is getting depleted and that you'd like to make more friends. So that's a decision, and once you make that, then things will occur to you. But I think the most important thing is to reach out. And I think it's hard to reach out because, say, you call someone and I live in a retirement community, so I might call someone to have dinner with me, and if they say no, that's fine. But say I reach out again and they say no again, you never know. You can think, well, maybe they really aren't busy, maybe you know, maybe I won't call them. And one of the learnings I've had is to just keep trying to make who I call, who I want to be with, and if I like them.

Katharine: 20:21

Some people just can't reach out themselves. They just don't do it. So it doesn't mean they don't like me, it just means they are one of those people that it's very hard to reach out. So I talked about that and I think the other thing is I think it is important to think about the nature of a deeper friendship and I see that good conversation, the best conversation with friends, are when they're just two people and I think a lot of people don't know that. That they kind of you know, if you're in a group like I have you know, my Zumba group, my walking groups you can be friends and acquaintances, my Zumba group, my walking groups you can be friends and acquaintances. But the kind of if you need somebody to be more close, even a closer friend, then I think you want to spend some time doing two things, just inviting them to do one thing. Let's the two of us have tea or something like that.

Katharine: 21:14

No-transcript. A lot of us are kind of stoic and we keep our problems to ourselves and we don't really aren't very open. And to make a real deep friendship we need to gradually share levels and it has to be a two-way street. So I think that there's a kind of a dance, a rhythm to a deepening friendship, that one person shares something and then the other. But self-disclosure as a skill is something I think most people don't talk about and don't realize that that's so it really to gradually let yourself be vulnerable to another person is a real skill and a real art of deepening your friendships.

Jane: 21:57

And I know I was speaking to someone about friendships a researcher and she said that trust and respect and you know a whole list of qualities that our good friends share with us, but she mentioned that shared values is number one and I wonder what you think about that.

Katharine: 22:26

Well, I think that certainly is true for a couple of relationships and I think for friends you can have a wider scope, I think of people that are different from yourself. We have some friends that are quite different, but right, especially in these times here in America that are so polarized on the political front when people are radically different, and I think it is more important. But I think it's a shame to let well, not let political beliefs. Now, that's not the same thing as value. So a value is honesty or trust, and that can cross all kinds of boundaries and you do want to share those. But as far as it comes to political thoughts, I think hopefully we can have acquaintances that we listen to across the spectrum.

Jane: 23:13

What about? Are you friends with women or men who are significantly younger than you are?

Katharine: 23:21

Oh, I am. That's one of the things. I have a group that I've been with for 10 years 20 years actually, and they're all 10 years younger than me, and I just made a new friend. This last weekend I was at this memorial service and the granddaughter of my friend, bill, was there and she and I hit it off and talked, but she's very interested in many of the things I'm interested in, and so we kind of have been writing back and forth. So I think it's often fine. I love to be with young people because they're so alive and interesting and so that it's very stimulating for me. I came back from that memorial service very inspirited.

Jane: 24:04

Oh, that's terrific, and you know you talked about another topic, it's a little bit to the side, but I found it fascinating and that is the shift in the parent-child relationship as we age. So we are the mothers or the grandmothers and we are in our 80s, and what kind of change takes place between us and our children.

Katharine: 24:32

Well, I think it is a natural, just as we bring our children into the world, is the gradual letting go and having them become more independent for ourselves.

Katharine: 24:44

As we get to the other end of the spectrum, it's a gradually strengthening our dependence on others and I think that's part of the hard process for aging that because we have overvalued independence and sort of our rugged individualism makes it harder for us, and people around here that are in their 80s and 90s keep saying I can do this by myself.

Katharine: 25:08

But the point really is let's just say it's my turn now. I've worked really hard all my life taking care of my kids and my husband and now it's my time to let people take care of me. So I mean, I had a real challenge this weekend when I was away from my setting here down in Virginia and to let people do things for me. You know, and I think that's part of wisdom is to realize we are not alone and there is a time and it's different for different people. Some people at 65 really need a lot of their dependency and I'm 89 and I walk pretty well, but I still need help in certain places and kind of a big thing for me was getting wheelchairs in an airport, I thought, well, not me, I can walk. But it was a help.

Jane: 26:02

I'd love to leave this on a happy note, and that is the happiness curve which says, in fact, why don't you define it and then give me your thoughts about it?

Katharine: 26:17

Well, the happiness curve says that it's like a U and that most happy years are at either end of the spectrum, either among the youth or the aged people, older people, and that the hard years are like 40, 50, 60. And I had done a lot of my own research and the people I interviewed that was my hugest finding just how very happy people were in their 80s, and unexpectedly happy, because people never expect to be happy as they age, but they really. They find themselves and I think it's such an important thing for people to learn that they can. You know that people in their 80s are happier than people in their 70s, and people in their 70s are happier than people in their 60s and people in their 60s are happier than people in their 50s, and I think we need to get the word out that that is absolutely true.

Katharine: 27:12

It's not just my research, it's many, many people, especially out in Stanford.

Katharine: 27:17

They have a whole institute and what it means is I think I'll only talk about the older people it's because we stop striving and we aren't focused on achievement and what we do is we at last kind of can let go of some of that and really learn, which we've all talked about is living in the present moment, but people that are older are far better able to actually do that and enjoy the little small ordinary things of the day.

Katharine: 27:48

So there is so much I mean I want to tell people every time I have the chance that there's so much to look forward to that hopefully people can give up their fears about aging and kind of see that they can look forward Some people could be 40 years after they stop their children leave and they stop work, and then that these years offer all kinds of fabulous potential for living a full life, learning things, experiencing things, digging deeper into what really the spiritual matters.

Katharine: 28:27

I think we all had a taste of the mysteries of the universe with the eclipse that happened recently, and so I think that those of us interested in aging, we have important work to do, because this understanding of happiness and the kind of quality of what the older years can actually be is not most people don't understand it, and so we still have a lot of work to do, and that is my purpose and one of the things I again I think that people don't understand. It is wonderful to have a purpose when you're in your 80s or 70s or 60s, and that that is one of the things that brings happiness too, and you get up every morning and you look forward to the day and what's ahead.

Jane: 29:14

I certainly concur. I wonder if you could let me know for the listeners your website address?

Katharine: 29:23

Sure, it's kathrynesteycom and kathryn. You spell, that's the each. Every part of my name is tricky spelling, but the kathryn is with a K and two A's, so it's K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-E and two A's, so it's K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-E, then it's dot and then it's S-T-E-S-T-Ycom, and then you get to the blog right from that.

Jane: 29:50

Yeah, yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth, because you have access not only to her blog but also to ordering her book. And her blogs are great, you know, extremely interesting and filled with all kinds of statistics, and I was just taken last night. I kept going from one to the other and I highly highly recommend it. Catherine, it is such a delight to have you here with us today. There's so much more to talk about, and so maybe we'll have a return engagement that would be lovely.

Katharine: 30:29

I'd love to. No, it has flowed, the conversation has flowed, it's been very fun and thank you for having me.

Jane: 30:36

I've enjoyed it and happy 90th, thank you so much, okay. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed it. And happy 90th, thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Older Women and Friends. And, speaking of friends, please tell yours about this podcast and if you have any suggestions for future episodes or guests or anything else you'd like to share, go to speakpipecom. That's S-P-E-A-K-P-I-P-Ecom forward slash. Older women and friends. You can send me an audio message or respond to one of mine, because it is your feedback that drives this podcast. Until next time,