Who’s Your Person? The One Who Shows Up When Life Gets Hard, with Ricki Radosh (Part 4 of 4)

A while back, Ricki Radosh’s son sent her one of those prompts that circulate online: "You just won a million dollars. Who is the first person you would call? Who’s your person?"
Then he added a line of his own. “Don’t tell anybody, but you’re my person.”

It was a sweet message from a son to his mother. It was also a question that kept pushing on her. Because when Ricki turned it around and asked it of herself, she did not have an answer. “I really didn’t know who my person was,” she said.

This is the fourth and final part of my conversation with Ricki about making friends in midlife. If you have followed the series, you have watched her tell the truth about the friendships she thought she had, the ones she reached back for, and the circle she has been building from scratch. This last piece is the one I think will stay with you longest, because it is about what happens when the question stops being a game and becomes real.

When the question turns real

Not long after her son sent that prompt, Ricki’s partner had a heart attack. She was in the hospital while the team worked on him, and then he passed. And in that hour, before he was gone, one thought kept circling. “Who am I gonna call? Who am I gonna call? Who am I gonna call?”

She sat with that alone. “I don’t have anybody to call,” she thought. Even though her circumstances had changed, an old belief was still running underneath. “Even though I broke up, in the back of my head I still have no friends.”

She put it simply. “The conversation doesn’t disappear just because you do different actions.” You can change your life on the outside, build new habits, make new choices, and the old story in your head can still be talking. Ricki knew, intellectually, that “I have no one” was not true anymore. It just did not feel that way in the moment that mattered most.

And then she called her mom. “Go figure. My mom is my person.”

The person who was there all along

What struck me about Ricki’s story is that her person had been available for years. She just had not counted her. For a long time she used to say she could not move to Florida because her mom lived there. Being close to her mom was something her own mind resisted. “Your mom? No.”

Then life pushed past the resistance. “When push came to shove and I needed a person, that person was my mom, and I was blown away by that.” The crisis did not only take something from her. It also opened something. “Once I got to see, oh, your mom is your person, I was able to put actions in, to see my mom a lot more.”

This is not a new pattern for Ricki. Back in 1997, she wanted to take a trip and her husband at the time backed out. She had no one else to ask, so someone suggested her mother. Her mom said yes without hesitation. “We’re going.” They went to Alaska together that year, and it started something. Since then Ricki has tried to take one trip a year with just her mom. Not every single year, she is honest about that, but around twenty or twenty-five trips over time.

A person who shows up for a scary hospital hour and a person who says yes to Alaska are the same kind of person. Ricki had the evidence for decades. What she did not have, until she needed it, was the willingness to name what was already true.

The reframe worth borrowing

There is a coaching idea underneath Ricki’s story that applies to far more than friendship. We tend to trust the conversation in our heads as if it were a live report on our current life. Often it is a recording from an older version of us. “I have no one to call” was accurate once. It was not accurate the day she needed it. The work is not to argue with the old recording. The work is to notice it, question whether it is still true, and then, as Ricki put it, “put actions in.”

For women in this season, that reframe matters, and it doesn't happen without awareness first. Many of us carry a quiet belief that we are behind on friendship, that everyone else has their people and we somehow missed it. Ricki’s answer is not to manufacture ten new friends by Friday. It is to look honestly at who is already there, and to stop overlooking the relationships that do not match the picture we had in mind. That level of clarity requires real soul-search about what your current values are, and do your current actions match your identified values.

So, who is your person?

Ask yourself that question the way Ricki did. If something happened tonight, wonderful news or hard news, who would you call? If a name comes to you right away, that is worth acting on. Reach out this week. Tell that person what they are to you, the way Ricki’s son told her. And if no name comes, or the name that comes surprises you or makes you a little sad, do not rush past that feeling. It is not a verdict on your worth. It is information, and information is where building something new begins.

There is another layer here that is true for many women in midlife, and it's true for me. Your person can change. The one who was your person for years may not be your person now, and the one who is may surprise you. That is not disloyalty. It is life moving. So underneath the first question sits a quieter one. Not only who would you call, but who is your person now, in the season you are actually in? It might be difficult to consider that you've been holding onto someone who doesn't fill that role for you now.

What does sexy mean to you now?

I close every conversation with the same question, and Ricki’s answer was one of my favorites, because she pushed back on the word itself. “When I first read your title I was thinking, Sexy in Your 60s, is sexy really a word that I’m going for? And I don’t know that it is for me. For me, peaceful is what I’m going for. For me, calm is what I’m going for.”

Then she landed it. “Sexy is actually being who you wanna be right here, right now, every single moment, because that’s all you have, just one moment at a time.”

That is the heart of it. Being who you want to be right now, and having people who show up when it counts, is the real work of this season, and it is worth every bit of the effort it takes.

If you are new to the series, start at the beginning. Part 1 asks whether you really have friends. Part 2 is about reaching back to old friends. Part 3 is about building a new circle after a move. This one, Part 4, is where it all comes home.

Listen to the Full Episode

Episode 39: Who’s Your Person? with Ricki Radosh (Part 4 of 4)

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Connect with Ricki Radosh

Ricki’s website 
Ricki on Instagram 
Claim Your Happiness podcast 
The Grass Grows Where I Am (book) 
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About Dvora Citron

Dvora Citron is a Registered Nurse, National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner, and the founder of slant2plants®.
She hosts Sexy in Your 60s to bring women the real ingredients of vibrant aging through science, story, support, and soul.
Her work helps women 50 and older create the health, confidence, and longevity they want in ways that feel realistic and sustainable.

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