In January, 2020, completely unaware of the tsunami of brown stuff that was about to descend on the entire world, I published a post about li’l ol’ me and my decision to strike out on my own, sans parachute.

It’s now just a little over 3 years since I formally left my Fife Council job, finally, irrevocably, on 21st April that year. So, for those of you who’ve perhaps been more concerned with other things since then, how did that pan out for me?

Well, using the headings in the original post as a guide, here’s how it’s been, and what I’ve learned.

I am the old guy in the corner, and I love it

There are many crap things about growing older. Increased entanglements with medical practitioners. Hair not growing where it should and growing where it shouldn’t. Realising that certain sporting endeavours are now beyond you unless you want to make a fool of yourself. Forgetting where you put the remote.

Set against all of that and more, so they say, is increased wisdom. Well, I don’t lay any great claim to that prized asset, but if you’ve worked in the same or similar areas for as long as I have, you’d have to have been asleep for the entire period not to have picked up some experience, as well as what I’d dignify as little more than common sense.

Here’s the thing, though. In a small organisation, or where you’re working for a particular client in a council and one or two close colleagues, you’re being engaged specifically for that particular set of skills. It’s not like someone’s being sent to you by someone else. Sure, you’re the old guy in the corner, but it’s a corner window seat and you can see up and down the street both ways.

Glory Days come and go. It’s how you look at them

In the last three years, I’ve been stretched in all sorts of directions professionally. Different organisations, different types of work, areas of law I previously knew nothing about. I’ve just damn well had to pick the ball up and run with it. It’s good for the brain. Which leads me to…

Change Is Good.

It totally is! I’ve never been the type that loves the same old, same old, and in my long years at Fife I was lucky enough to change roles enough times to keep things interesting. It’s just that in my last one, I was clearly intended to coast towards the buffers at the end of the line stickered retirement.

Forcing myself to jump off the train and onto another one while it was moving was the best thing I ever did. The best.

Enough funerals – I’ve had enough wake up calls!

It’s not all been rainbows and unicorns, as someone put it to me recently. Friends and acquaintances continue to die off at alarmingly young ages. Carpe that fucking diem, as Horace used to say.

Hitting your sixties is better and worse than your fifties

In many ways I found my fifties the toughest decade – parents died, I had my own brush with mortality (a melanoma), and I started to find the grind of a five day week was taking too much out of me. Moving to part time (when I manage it) has been reinvigorating.

When you hit sixty, there are some advantages. First off, you’re still here (see above). If you’re lucky and you’ve worked hard, you have a degree of financial security. Your kids have often reached the stage where they’re independent, at least in most ways (it’s kind of nice when they depend on you for something, being honest. Anything. Even just borrowing your sander.)

Also, as a general rule, you have less fucks to give.

Downside? Did you ever do sociology or criminology and encounter labelling theory? When you hit sixty you qualify for a bus pass in Scotland. That’s like society saying, ‘that’s you officially old, dude. And by the way, as you’re over sixty, don’t use the word dude. It’s not age appropriate. Dude.’

I’m still risk averse

It was actually a liberating experience handing in my tin star to the Law Society of Scotland and no longer being able to call myself a solicitor. The full majesty of their Rules and Regulations will no longer fall upon me. Which is nice.

However, that lawyer part of my brain (which may or may not be the lizard part) still operates. In fact, it was probably there before I became a lawyer. I’m still risk averse, although maybe a bit less so. I’m probably a bit more inclined to say, ‘what’s the worst thing that can happen?’ So my wife tells me.

Everyone has a particular set of skills. But they can evolve

See above. I’ve had such a blast the past three years. There’s only one problem, really: when do I retire? I have loved working with new colleagues and (I hope) earning their respect. I know there’s lots of volunteering opportunities out there, but my current job involves (in a small way) trying to save the planet by getting people out of their single-occupancy cars.

I still want to change the world, even just a little bit. The other day I heard myself telling the boss of my main client I could go on a bit longer, but on reduced hours. How long? Who knows. But I’m already way past my original deadline of September last year, when I actually turned 60.

So why retire at all? My wife of 35 years – the same sweet-natured woman who told me I didn’t need to rub the toe of David Hume’s statue in the Royal Mile because I had enough wisdom already (I’m not so sure: see above) said the other day she had no doubt at all I’d fill my days up when I properly retired, because she didn’t know anyone else that had so many interests. And yet, and yet…

We’ll see. Come next spring, we’ll see.

P.S. For anyone at the same place as me, I found this online article about the 5 emotional stages of retirement quite interesting.