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" Katie Couric is in heaven. She&amp;#039;s always loved to sing, and today, along with two female backup singers, she&amp;#039;s in a New York City recording studio singing the pop classic &amp;quot;Johnny Angel.&amp;quot; The three women are reprising a recent performance they gave at a fund-raiser at Katie&amp;#039;s church, but as to why they&amp;#039;re putting it on tape, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not sure,&amp;quot; says Katie, flashing her famous ear-to-ear grin. &amp;quot;Just because it&amp;#039;s really fun.&amp;quot; Fresh from meeting with staffers to prep for her new Disney-ABC syndicated talk show, Katie, debuting this month, she&amp;#039;s dressed in a peach blouse, a slim white skirt, and very high heels; the famous legs are tanned and as shapely as ever. &amp;quot;Johnny Angel, how I love him / He&amp;#039;s got something I can&amp;#039;t resist...&amp;quot; she croons into the mic. Between takes, she cracks jokes, kibitzes with the singers, and invites everyone in the studio to visit her at her weekend home in the Hamptons. She&amp;#039;s having a ball. &amp;quot;Fun&amp;quot; is one of Katie&amp;#039;s favorite words (&amp;quot;Could I have a little bit of goat cheese thrown in there for fun?&amp;quot; she asked a waiter at breakfast, ordering an egg-white frittata), and these days it&amp;#039;s a priority. With her kids nearly grown \u2014 Ellie is a senior in college, and Carrie&amp;#039;s a high school junior \u2014 she&amp;#039;s feeling free from the &amp;quot;huge responsibilities&amp;quot; of single-parent child raising, and she&amp;#039;s determined to enjoy it. She&amp;#039;s more than earned some fun. In the past year and a half, Katie&amp;#039;s life has gone through several sea changes. In May 2011, she and CBS \u2014 where she had been anchor of the Evening News for five years \u2014 parted ways. &amp;quot;I just hope this is fun,&amp;quot; Katie had said brightly on the cusp of starting her new job. But it wasn&amp;#039;t fun, and there was no love lost between her and the CBS powers that be when she left. Weeks after her last day at the job, she lost the father she adored. John Couric, who died of complications from Parkinson&amp;#039;s disease, was a former newspaper editor, his daughter&amp;#039;s role model, and Katie&amp;#039;s lifelong fan. She has lost others \u2014 her husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer in 1998; her sister Emily, a Virginia state senator, to pancreatic cancer 11 years ago \u2014 and while her father&amp;#039;s passing, at almost 91, didn&amp;#039;t have the tragic elements of their untimely deaths, it was a deep blow all the same. She&amp;#039;s experienced romantic loss, too: Last December, she and Brooks Perlin, the entrepreneur boyfriend who was 17 years her junior, ended their five-year relationship, leaving her no closer to the &amp;quot;life partner&amp;quot; she&amp;#039;s yearned for for years. Simultaneously, she&amp;#039;s been dealing with other poignant life changes: She&amp;#039;s anxious about living without both her girls at home. Menopause, which she is &amp;quot;smack-dab in the middle of,&amp;quot; has brought an awareness that a chapter of her life has closed. And simply &amp;quot;being in the last half of your life,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;is very scary. Turning 55 was more of a wake-up call on that front for me than 50 was.&amp;quot;  So when she talks about having fun, Katie&amp;#039;s not talking about a giddy escape from the vicissitudes of life. She&amp;#039;s not carefree \u2014 who, at 55, is? She&amp;#039;s talking about something else, about embracing her life with all its trials and challenges. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m very aware,&amp;quot; she says thoughtfully, &amp;quot;of getting every drop of joy from the present.&amp;quot; The months since leaving her anchor post at CBS, which required her to be on call virtually 24/7, have given her the gift of some rare time to breathe \u2014 to &amp;quot;recharge,&amp;quot; as she puts it. She&amp;#039;s quick to point out that she&amp;#039;s been working, as well \u2014 on specials for ABC, her new employer, and filling in for a week on Good Morning America. And she&amp;#039;s been up to her usual good deeds. She&amp;#039;s traveled the country to promote her recent book, The Best Advice I Ever Got, a collection of essays by Meryl Streep, Suze Orman, and others, and has donated all her proceeds to Scholarship America, a nonprofit that helps send students to college. Her long-standing work on colon cancer awareness and research continues, and she&amp;#039;s now a public face and fund-raiser for Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C), the next step in the initiative. Relatively speaking, though, she&amp;#039;s been a woman of leisure. &amp;quot;Not having to put on makeup every day was a godsend,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Not having overscheduled days, not having to get on a plane at the drop of a hat \u2014 it was just nice. &amp;quot;It was a time for me to recalibrate, which is a word I think of a lot. I try to reevaluate all the aspects of my life \u2014 what am I doing right, what am I doing wrong, am I spending enough time with my kids? This year has allowed me to take some time and get off the treadmill a little bit...to slow down, which I haven&amp;#039;t done for 32 years.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s been enjoying her house in the Hamptons (her recent photo posts on Twitter include an image of peonies from her garden). She&amp;#039;s learning Italian with the help of the Rosetta Stone program. &amp;quot;I want to be Diane Lane and go under the Tuscan sun,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I want to be Diane Lane, period.&amp;quot; More important, she&amp;#039;s been able to spend more time with her girls: Ellie, who&amp;#039;s now 21, and Carrie, 16. After today&amp;#039;s recording session, she and Ellie will be cheering on Carrie at a school track meet. But Katie&amp;#039;s all too aware that Carrie will be at college like her sister soon, and then Katie will be alone. Recently, Carrie floated the idea of going to college in California. The idea of her younger daughter&amp;#039;s living so far away &amp;quot;was like a knife in my heart,&amp;quot; Katie says, only half joking. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a bittersweet time, &amp;quot;she says. &amp;quot;I love being around my kids. I&amp;#039;m not a particularly solitary person...I like a big, chaotic household \u2014 noise, commotion, laughter! Sometimes I think I should have had six kids. Or I wish I&amp;#039;d had one [more] at 37, but I was busy. My career,&amp;quot; she says regretfully. With Ellie at college and Carrie busy with schoolwork, Katie finds that &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s awfully quiet in our apartment. And Carrie can be a typical 16-year-old girl.&amp;quot; Katie knows that no one can bruise your feelings the way an adolescent girl can. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re very proficient at the surgical strike, [knowing] just where that tender spot is,&amp;quot; she notes ruefully. In fact, after the recording session, while Katie and the others relax in the control room, the following conversation takes place: &amp;quot;My daughter loves you,&amp;quot; says Ashley, one of the two backup singers and also a member of Katie&amp;#039;s church. &amp;quot;I love her,&amp;quot; says Katie. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s special,&amp;quot; says Ashley. &amp;quot;It is,&amp;quot; says Katie. &amp;quot;Because my daughter is so not into me. I&amp;#039;m so happy when she comes into my bed and lets me do her history with her.&amp;quot; Carrie&amp;#039;s not always so cozy. &amp;quot;You have to have a lot of self-esteem to take it,&amp;quot; says Katie of the tension that can come between a mom and her teen. But she also knows that Carrie is doing the work that adolescents need to do. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just a part of detaching and finding your way,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;As a friend of mine says, especially when you have a mother like me who&amp;#039;s in the public eye, it&amp;#039;s more difficult to separate \u2014 and more important to do that, to find your own path.&amp;quot; Katie may be a tender mother, but she&amp;#039;s also determined that her girls will fend for themselves. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve told them they have to find their way. They can&amp;#039;t depend on me,&amp;quot; she says about life \u2014 and finances \u2014 after college. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m hard-nosed that way.&amp;quot; When Ellie expressed surprise, &amp;quot;I said, &amp;#039;Welcome to the real world, honey.&amp;#039; &amp;quot;Of course, if they really needed something, I&amp;#039;d help, but they have to establish their own identities, and that includes their own financial identities. You want them to be independent; you don&amp;#039;t want them to be slackers in any way, shape, or form. And I know I&amp;#039;m in a very enviable position to even have these issues.&amp;quot;  BIG CHANGES AHEAD For five years, her fans mostly saw a more subdued version of Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m really proud of the work I did,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I had an ultimate sense of satisfaction. But I was not ambivalent about feeling this wasn&amp;#039;t the place for me for the rest of my career. It wasn&amp;#039;t the right environment for me. In terms of the atmosphere, it wasn&amp;#039;t a good fit for my sensibilities and personality.&amp;quot; She got through it with determination and a tough hide. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not a quitter. There were times when I thought to myself, Gee, do I need this? But I thought, You know what? I can do this job as well as anyone. If people are projecting their own issues onto me, that&amp;#039;s not my problem. &amp;quot;I resolved to do the best job I could and focus on the business at hand,&amp;quot; she says. Necessary, no doubt, but not that much fun. When describing how she felt while working at CBS, she chooses her wording carefully: &amp;quot;Constrained.&amp;quot; And when she left? &amp;quot;I felt liberated,&amp;quot; she says, sounding serene. The spirited, spontaneous, chatty Katie whom TV viewers loved as the co-host of the Today show is ready to return. She&amp;#039;s all about the new show now; everything, it seems, is a potential topic for her program \u2014 medical news, over-parenting, dating violence, the Internet&amp;#039;s influence on teenagers. And she trusts her gut, knowing that what intrigues her will capture her audience&amp;#039;s attention as well. One big topic she&amp;#039;s eager to cover is menopause \u2014 a big-deal, ongoing event that she&amp;#039;s currently in the midst of grappling with. &amp;quot;I was happy to stave it off until I was 55,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re younger, you dread your period, and when you&amp;#039;re older, you want to give it a big hug. You think, I&amp;#039;ve still got it goin&amp;#039; on! Anyway, I think those days are over. &amp;quot;[When] a chapter closes in your life, [it] reminds you of your own mortality,&amp;quot; Katie continues. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re going through a life change, and there&amp;#039;s no turning back.&amp;quot; These days, she says, &amp;quot;I have total child lust when I see little kids&amp;quot; \u2014 a wistfulness for what she can&amp;#039;t have. &amp;quot;I think emotionally and psychologically it&amp;#039;s weird to feel like, Gosh, my childbearing years are over. And of course they&amp;#039;ve been over for a long time, but still, they&amp;#039;re officially over now.&amp;quot; She pauses. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s kind of a head trip, to tell you the truth.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;navigating what to do&amp;quot; about the physical aspects of menopause, she says. At the moment, she&amp;#039;s on an estrogen patch, but is it truly helpful? &amp;quot;I think so,&amp;quot; she says, sounding unsure. &amp;quot;At this point, I&amp;#039;m so confused about what is menopause or perimenopause and what is jet lag, anxiety, depression, or mood swings.&amp;quot; Then, as her work wheels obviously start turning in her head, she adds, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d like to help women get the latest information; it&amp;#039;s one of those things people don&amp;#039;t talk about, and doctors don&amp;#039;t have time to really work with women...I mean, let&amp;#039;s talk about this stuff.&amp;quot; Personally, Katie tries to eat healthily (she&amp;#039;s had whole-grain bread with no butter for breakfast) \u2014 and to exercise. &amp;quot;I kept hearing, &amp;#039;Your weight is going to re-distribute, you&amp;#039;re going to get thick in the middle.&amp;#039; So I decided I needed to be more committed to exercising \u2014 plus, I think the endorphins are helpful.&amp;quot; She says she&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;intrinsically lazy&amp;quot; about keeping fit. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always done exercise, but I&amp;#039;ve never really committed to it,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not very good about pushing myself physically.&amp;quot; But recently she&amp;#039;s taken up spinning. &amp;quot;I like it because for 45 minutes you just have to keep going. Even if you don&amp;#039;t go at the same speed as your neighbors, or you&amp;#039;re not, you know, Lance Armstrong in drag, it&amp;#039;s just intense exercise.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s not unhappy about the fact that age has lessened what she&amp;#039;s called her &amp;quot;chipmunk cheeks.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I always had kind of a fat face,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Now I can see my cheekbones for the first time. You know, they say as you get older you have to decide between [maintaining] your butt or your face,&amp;quot; she jokes. &amp;quot;Clearly, I&amp;#039;ve made my choice.&amp;quot; She wisecracks about wrinkles \u2014 &amp;quot;The beauty of aging is, the more wrinkles you get, the fewer you can see,&amp;quot; she says \u2014 but she&amp;#039;s careful to slather on moisturizer. She&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;not opposed to people enhancing their looks as long as they maintain their individuality. Sometimes they start to look like clones,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I know it sounds corny, but I think the key to staying young is having joy inside you; being a caring, loving, generous person; and [having] a sense of humor.&amp;quot; Like other women in midlife hormonal flux, she now routinely wakes up in the middle of the night. But she&amp;#039;s resigned herself to this (lack of) sleep pattern, saying, &amp;quot;Some of my best tweets are at 4 A.M., and some of my best words in Words With Friends [her current addiction] are at 4 A.M.&amp;quot; She pauses and asks, &amp;quot;Why is that?&amp;quot;  FRIENDS, FAITH, AND FAMILY Katie has friends, as she&amp;#039;s always had, to help her through this phase of her life. She depends on a loyal circle of women, many of them pals for 20 years or more, which includes her Today show, CBS, and now Katie producer, Lori Beecher. And they depend on her, too. &amp;quot;I share everything with her. There&amp;#039;s nothing I can&amp;#039;t talk about with her, and vice versa,&amp;quot; says Beecher. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s always very busy, but there&amp;#039;s never been a time when she hasn&amp;#039;t found time for those she cares about.&amp;quot; If Katie is wide awake in the middle of the night and worried about something, &amp;quot;I call my friend Donna in Michigan, who happens to be a therapist and doesn&amp;#039;t charge me for late-night phone calls,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s very, very wise, and so dialed-in emotionally. We started working at CNN together in our 20s. She&amp;#039;s the one I call at 3 A.M., poor thing.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s always sought another kind of counsel, as well. &amp;quot;My parents each have a deep faith,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I would say I&amp;#039;m a spiritual person.&amp;quot; She attends her church &amp;quot;sporadically,&amp;quot; she admits, but &amp;quot;I love my minister; I really appreciate his intellect, his faith. I also appreciate the ritual. I like the sense of community, the opportunity to be contemplative. My dad and I used to go to church a lot together.&amp;quot; She muses for a moment about her father, saying, &amp;quot;I felt so grateful that I had my dad as long as I did. His quality of life had deteriorated; he had Parkinson&amp;#039;s and other medical issues. [As his condition worsened,] my mom said to me, &amp;#039;There are worse things than dying.&amp;#039; And when it comes to loss, I think his is the death I&amp;#039;m most at peace with. He lived such a long life, and he saw his kids grow up, and he was able to impart his wisdom to us.&amp;quot; Though friends, faith, and her family&amp;#039;s love may support her, she&amp;#039;s honest about the fact that she&amp;#039;d like a romantic partner. Talking about her breakup with Perlin, she says, &amp;quot;Any time a relationship ends, you have a sense of loss. On the other hand, sometimes it&amp;#039;s important to move forward.&amp;quot; Perlin was the latest of a few long-term boyfriends since her husband&amp;#039;s death. &amp;quot;I knew it wasn&amp;#039;t going to be an enduring relationship,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m very old-fashioned. I&amp;#039;m not a serial monogamist; it&amp;#039;s just sort of turned out that way. I love having a partner, and I love the intimacy and companionship.... I would like to meet a life partner. I don&amp;#039;t want any more&amp;quot; \u2014 she searches for the right word \u2014 &amp;quot;finite relationships.&amp;quot; For now, she&amp;#039;s going out on dates, usually set up by her friends (she returns the favor: &amp;quot;My friends say I should have &amp;#039;Matchmaker&amp;#039; written on my card instead of &amp;#039;Television Anchor&amp;#039; &amp;quot;), and is &amp;quot;having a lot of fun.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m confident I&amp;#039;ll have a long-term, committed relationship,&amp;quot; she says. Nevertheless, she says with a sigh, &amp;quot;I never in a million years thought I&amp;#039;d be 55 and dating.&amp;quot; Though she might not have planned on dating at this age, she is coping with one issue she feels is totally to be expected. &amp;quot;I think I&amp;#039;m dealing with the thing a lot of people my age are dealing with \u2014 caring for a parent. I go to see [my mother], I try to have her come to New York. I wish I could do more. It&amp;#039;s wonderful and can be slightly stressful; it can be hard. But I feel very close to my mom. I want to be there for her, as she has been there for me for 55 years.&amp;quot; She worries about her mother, still in the Arlington, VA, home she shared with her husband for 54 years, and whether she&amp;#039;s lonely. &amp;quot;If I lived closer, I&amp;#039;d take her out to dinner, see her a few times a week,&amp;quot; she says. Katie does what she can, including surprising her mother with a brand-new, &amp;quot;very sporty&amp;quot; car last Christmas, all wrapped with a gigantic red bow. It took her mother time to recover from the extravagance of the gesture \u2014 after all, says her daughter, &amp;quot;my mom is a child of the Depression&amp;quot; \u2014 but she now tootles happily around her hometown in it. When she&amp;#039;s an old lady, Katie will no doubt still be tootling around, too. This is not a woman who wants to sit still. The years ahead are all about &amp;quot;fulfilling every fantasy I&amp;#039;ve ever had,&amp;quot; she says. (Those include singing a duet with Tony Bennett, cooking a meal with renowned chef Daniel Boulud, skydiving \u2014 she admits to being afraid of heights \u2014 and some exotic travel.) And she&amp;#039;s also looking forward to &amp;quot;expanding my brain, being exposed to things that I don&amp;#039;t know about or trying to figure those things out,&amp;quot; she adds, flashing that trademark grin. &amp;quot;I mean, some things are not figure-out-able. But some things are.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/interviews/a18325/katie-couric-interview/>