The Retirist: About
Weekly essays mapping the psychological gaps no one warned you about — for people who built careers, not retirement plans.
Who I am and why this exists
I’m Andy J Williamson. I spent thirty years translating complexity into clarity for other people’s clients — technical writing, consultancy, content strategy. My work arrived via existing connections.
I’ve never had to hustle.
Then, in 2024, at sixty, I closed my laptop on the last client project. The following Tuesday, I sat at the same desk with nothing scheduled. No deliverable. No inbox requiring attention. Just the rain tapping at the window like it had somewhere to be and I didn't.
That’s when I discovered something no one had warned me about: the disorientation of leaving the job, but leaving the identity as well.
Who am I without my title? What do I do when no one’s asking?
The Retirist exists because I couldn’t find anything that addressed what I was actually experiencing. Financial planning sites wanted to talk about drawdown strategies. “Senior” publications wanted to sell me cruises. Self-help books regurgitated the stuff I’d read 30 years earlier.
Nobody was mapping the psychological territory itself.
So I started mapping it.
What The Retirist is about
Post-career transition creates gaps — psychological spaces that open up when professional identity ends. They’re near-universal, but rarely named.
The Gaps Framework:
Contribution: I was a primary contributor. Now what?
Relevance: I have expertise. Who’s listening?
Identity: “What do you do?” has become uncomfortable.
Structure: My days have no shape.
Social: Colleagues were friends. Where did everyone go?
Income: I’m drawing down, not earning. Why does spending feel like failure?
Authority: People used to listen. Now they’re polite.
Visibility: Society has stopped reflecting me back.
Competence: After decades of mastery, I’m a perpetual beginner.
Domestic: Home is now the primary arena. Everything reconfigures — space, routines, who opens the post.
Horizon: Time is finite. Every decision carries new weight.
I explore these gaps — not as problems to solve quickly, but as territory to understand first. The essays are honest about struggle and honest about pathways.
Who this is for
If you built a career on contribution and competence, and now face the void where that identity used to be — you’re in the right place.
This publication is for people who:
Fused their identity with professional work and feel the loss of it
Want frameworks and depth, not “10 tips for a fulfilling retirement”
Appreciate being treated as intelligent adults, not “seniors”
Would rather understand what’s happening than rush past it
Value honesty over false positivity
Every Sunday, I send something worth your time. Coffee optional, armchair recommended.
Who this is NOT for
The Retirist won’t be a good fit if you’re looking for:
Financial planning advice (I’m not qualified, and there are better places for that)
Relentless positivity about “the best years of your life”
Health and frailty content (that’s a different territory)
Hustle culture (”monetise your encore career!”)
Doom and catastrophe about ageing
If you want someone to tell you everything will be wonderful or everything is terrible, I’m the wrong writer. I’m interested in what’s true.
What you’ll get
Free subscribers receive:
Mind The Gap — The flagship essays. Every Sunday, one gap explored in depth. The psychological territory mainstream retirement content ignores.
Paid subscribers also receive:
Field Notes — Intimate dispatches from inside the transition. The attic clean-out that becomes a meditation on memory. The Thursday afternoon when the empty calendar hit differently. Raw, in-the-moment, unpolished.
The Competent Amateur — A monthly series on learning new things after decades of mastery. The comedy and frustration of being a beginner again.
Community access — Monthly Q&A calls with other readers navigating this territory.
Paid subscriptions launch later this year. For now, everything is free.
About me
I write from West Wales in the UK, where coastline and mountain walks provide both perspective and unpredictable weather.
Before this, I spent time in the British Army (logistics, not machine guns), then decades in technical consultancy — telecoms, investment banking systems — before running my own content and marketing consultancy for over twenty years.
I’ve spent my career making complex things clear for other people. The Retirist is the first time I’m writing under my own name, about my own experience.
I’m navigating this transition in real time. I don’t have it figured out. That’s rather the point.
Ready to start mapping?
Subscribe below. Every Sunday, something worth your time arrives — no cruise advertisements, no pension calculators, just honest exploration of what this transition actually feels like.
Get in touch
Have a thought, a question, or a gap I haven’t named? I’d like to hear from you: andy@theretirist.com
Or find me on LinkedIn — it’s the one social media platform I actually use.
