I thought I wouldn’t mind turning 60 one little bit. After all, my 50s had been my best decade ever. Yes, my face was saggier, my memory iffier and my body didn’t bounce back from late nights or lengthy walks like it used to. However, I felt more confident and content than I’d ever felt in my 20s, 30s or 40s. I was finally happy with who I was and where all the pieces of my life had landed. I had more zest for life than ever! So turning 60 wouldn’t make any difference. It really was just a number. I was wrong.My 60th birthday landed with an unexpected thud. Almost overnight, I felt older and uglier, stiffer in my movements and foggier in my mind. It turned out I wasn’t even imagining it. According to an article I stumbled across online, new research showed that there really is a sudden “burst” of aging at age 60 — a fast-forwarding of the disintegration process. But that wasn’t what was bothering me the most. What really bothered me was that now that I’d tipped over into my 60s, people were starting to respond to me differently. I had to work a lot harder at parties to get people younger than me to engage in conversation — or even notice me in the first place. And teens and 20-somethings often brushed against me in the street now as if I literally wasn’t there. I was becoming invisible.My confidence started to shrivel. Before I knew it, I was caught in a negative feedback loop. The less readily people noticed or engaged with me, the less readily I did anything to make them notice or engage with me. I could feel myself turning into a meeker, milder, mediocre version of myself.Was this the beginning of the end? Was I just meant to let myself shrink into my 60s? I wasn’t ready for that. I needed an antidote. An idea started to form. Let’s make 60 count, I thought. Let’s take that number and play with it. Turn it into something positive and meaningful, fun and fulfilling, something that would let me reclaim my confidence and connection with people — whoever they were, whatever their age. So I hatched a plan.I decided to invite 60 random people to sit down and have a cup of tea with me. Some would be total strangers. Some would be people I’d noticed and was curious about from a distance. Others would be people I knew a tiny bit and wanted to know more. And I’d also include friends and family I knew well — or thought I did! Because I wasn’t just looking for small talk, there needed to be a bit more to it, though. I decided I’d ask each person the same set of tea-themed questions — yes, tea! — that I hoped would gently springboard us into meaningful conversation and connection. After all, I was an English person living in England, a country steeped in the tradition of “a nice cup of tea.” The drink is intertwined with our rituals, families, relationships and memories.My own deep enjoyment of tea, I’m sure, has very little to do with the taste of it, and everything to do with the fact that the only consistent act of love my dad showed me as a child was to bring me a cup of it in bed — with milk, two sugars, and two biscuits — every single morning. Still, my new, shyer, 60-year-old self wavered. Would people even say yes to my invites, or just think I was a batty old lady? Would I really dare to ask strangers? Would the questions actually work? Before I could change my mind, Cup of Tea No.1 fell into my hands.“I hear you’ve had a big birthday!” said a guy I bumped into in the street. He was a friend of a friend of a friend, and before I knew it, I was babbling out my 60-Cups-of-Tea idea, testing how it sounded when I said it out loud. He pounced immediately.“I’ll be your guinea pig!” he said, and just a few days later, I was sitting in his garden in the sunshine, sharing a pot of fresh mint tea with homemade honey and semolina cake. We chatted for almost two whole hours.“You know,” he confessed as I got up to leave, “Before you arrived, I told myself I’d hold my cards close to my chest... but I’ve told you everything — and really enjoyed it!”At that moment, I knew I was on to a winning formula. I walked home feeling uplifted already. From there, it just got better and better. I bounced from cup of tea to cup of tea, getting braver and braver about who I asked. A Buddhist nun at a Buddhist temple. The boss who fired me in my 20s. A truck driver at a truck stop. My hairdresser. We’ve only shared the tiniest of talk in the salon up until now. Two street performers I encountered in the city center. By Cup of Tea No. 6, I was getting invites. Word was out.“Would you have a cup of tea with me on the beach in front of my house?” messaged a woman I barely knew. She lived on a tiny, isolated peninsula cut off by the tide for hours every day. Absolutely, I would! Part of the fun of this was mixing up where or how I had these cups of tea: I drank it up in a tree, wearing tutus, cruising on a houseboat up the canal, sitting in comfortable velvet armchairs on the edge of a cliff.The author (left) having a cup of tea on the edge of a cliff.Courtesy of Claire PotterAnd suddenly I’m exploding with the possibilities of who I could ask.I wonder who the artist of that painting I love on my living room wall is? Let’s track them down!How about that man I see out my window every day in his thobe on his way to prayer at the local mosque?Why not ask my 96-year-old father-in-law? I’ve never had a proper one-to-one chat with him — quite bizarre when you consider that he produced 50% of my husband and I produced 50% of his grandchildren.Didn’t that man I was introduced to the other day say he worked at the mortuary at the hospital? Let’s stare death in the eye with him. After all, that’s almost certainly where I’m going to end up.Cup of Tea No.15 was with an ex-boyfriend I hadn’t seen for over 30 years — and he told me that he was coming dressed as a woman. He and I were together for three years at university in the ’80s. His cross-dressing, which had been secret back then (I’d only discovered it when I came home unexpectedly early from a lecture and caught him in my clothes and make-up) was, without doubt, a catalyst in our break-up. I’m so pleased that he can now openly present as a woman when he wants to, but I find the thought of meeting him as a female mind-boggling and nerve-wracking nonetheless.This person who sat down opposite me was unrecognizable. Then I caught that familiar, super-cheeky grin, and we relaxed into sharing memories — memories that belong only to us.I’ve often thought how sad it is that we often never again get the chance to see someone from our past we loved intensely, someone we chose to share a precious chunk of our life with. I’m so happy we’ve had this opportunity to reminisce and reconnect. I think I’ve made a new girlfriend. The author (left) having a cup of tea with the ex she hadn’t seen for over 30 years.Courtesy of Claire PotterAnd the cups of tea just kept coming.A priest.An old friend I haven’t seen for years who is now sober.An anti-female genital mutilation activist. My cousins. They were such big characters in my childhood, yet as adults, we’d only really seen each other at funerals. We recaptured the sleepovers we had as kids by having our cup of tea in pajamas on the bed!When I went on holiday to Thailand to reunite with my 18-year-old daughter, who had just finished three months of voluntary work there, I had a cup of tea with her at a tea plantation. Over the best green tea we’d ever tasted, she started to reflect on the experience she’d just had, but was soon opening up to me about her childhood, her romantic relationships and her dreams. I realized how rarely we’d have such an honest conversation, because so rarely do I listen without a part of me wanting to pounce in with parental advice or opinion. I realized how many times I must have stifled her with that you’ll-understand-when-you’re-older undertone.“Ask me more questions!” she said at the end. A similar thing happened when I had a cup of tea with my 25-year-old son. The conversation cut through the mother-son dynamic we’d been stuck in since he left home at 18. And I realized how much I’d “fossilized” him — automatically assuming I knew and understood him just because he was my son. I’m so glad I had that chance to tune into how he’s changed and catch up with who he has become.Without exception, every single cup of tea was wonderful — and the people I invited seemed to enjoy it as much as me.“Thank you. That really made me have a good think about things,” said one person.“That felt like therapy!” said someone else.“Such small prompts to such big conversations!” another told me.Indeed, the tea-themed questions unlocked more than I could have imagined. The stories poured out — sometimes heart-warming, sometimes heart-breaking. Climbing into bed with their mum and dad on a Saturday morning and feeling special because they were allowed tiny sips of their tea. Always dreaming of treating their mum to a posh afternoon tea in London when they grew up but never getting to. She died before they grew up. Having to keep their Sunday afternoon cups of tea at a department store with their grandad secret because he always brought along his mistress. Sitting up a tree with their friends drinking tea and watching the sun rise at the end of university, so full of joy and optimism for the future.Marrying a woman because the morning after the first night they slept together, they discovered she was the only person to ever make them a cup of tea exactly as they liked it.Feeling soothed and touched by the flask of tea that a hotel receptionist in China brought to their room when they were anxious and exhausted with their newly adopted baby.Writing the words of their wife’s obituary after she died by suicide: “I will forever love you. Rest in peace and we’ll meet again. Have a cup of tea waiting for me.”Tea, it seems, really is tangled up with our lives.The author (right) having a cup of tea with a houseboat dweller while cruising up the canal.Courtesy of Claire PotterOn a weekend trip to Zagreb, I was excited to sit down and share a cup of tea with the creator of the Museum of Broken Relationships, somewhere I’d wanted to go for a very long time. As we parted, she told me she’d been thinking about having a slogan printed on the takeaway cups in the museum cafe, something jokey like HOW ABOUT CAKE? However, after our chat, she wondered if an open invitation like WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE A CUP OF TEA WITH ME? might be better — something to nudge people to take the risk of reaching out to someone new. “An unexpected encounter between two humans, sharing something intimate — that’s when magic happens,” she told me.I couldn’t agree more. My 57 cups of tea (only three to go!) have worked their spell on me for sure. I’m full to bursting with the warmth and joy of human-to-human connection, and my confidence has bounced right back. I’ve learned that it’s never too late to make new friends, reignite old ones and strengthen — or adjust — the relationships you already have. And I now know that even if I can’t stop my age from making me less visible, I don’t need to let that stop me from being brave, curious and playful.I’m going into my 60s full blast after all. Claire Potter is an author of parenting books and children’s picture books. Her online program, Tiny Bites, leads parents through a three-step process to turn their child from a picky to an unpicky eater. You can see all the cups of tea she’s done at Sixty Cups of Tea.Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.