is Hotmail Live e-mail accounts retiring too? do I have to upgrade to this Outlook.what will happen if I don’t upgrade.

when I first got the notice about Messenger retiring and to upgrade to Skype, I panicked and tried to make the change but had a really hard time and had to keep trying to install it so I just gave up and removed the Messenger/Skype all together. I never really used Messenger anyway,I only kept it on the desktop to see when an e-mail came in. I received another notice to do the merge to Skype but I saw on here that it would not affect Hotmail live itself if I don't but now I see on here that we will have to upgrade to this Outlook? if I choose not to do it will I lose my e-mail account permanently? I'm confused with all these changes and I hope I just misunderstood things and about this Outlook upgrade.(oh at the bottom I didn't know which e-mail topic to pick so that's why I chose that one) I do have a small problem sometimes with receiving e-mails and not know I have any untill I restart my puter and then I see it but one thing at a time,right
Lori