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A filing cabinet, a notebook, and the gaps nobody talks about
While rummaging through my filing cabinet the other week, I came across an old meetings notebook. I was looking for my home insurance policy — it was due for renewal, a mission that would keep me busy for most of the morning. I flicked through the pages. Deadlines I’d hit. People I’d chased. Decisions that had waited on me. Thirty years of mattering, dog-eared and spiral-bound.
Ola asked what I was doing. “Archaeology,” I said, which wasn’t untrue. She gave me the look — the one that says you’ve been standing there for ten minutes and the cabinet drawer above, clearly labelled Insurances, is still shut. I put the notebook back. I haven’t returned to that cabinet since.
The Retirement Pivot
That notebook is what this publication is about. Not the notebook itself — the moment. The standing in front of a drawer, holding evidence of who you used to be, not quite sure who you are now.
I turned sixty last year. I stepped back from over thirty years of translating complex systems into understandable documents — turning engineers’ scribbled concepts into readable prose for the rest of us. I was, by any reasonable measure, ready for retirement. Financially okay, lovely home in West Wales, surrounded by coastline and nature. No health crisis forcing the decision. Just... done. Ready for whatever comes next.
Except nobody really tells you what comes next. Or rather, they all tell you — but they’re all talking about the wrong things.
Mind The Gap
The retirement industry has two default settings: panic and denial.
One side catastrophises — the silver tsunami, the pension crisis, the demographic cliff. You’re a problem to be managed, a burden on systems that are already on the verge of collapse. The other side sells you the dream — the golden years, the cruise lifestyle, the golf course sunset. Sixty is the new forty, they say, as if age were something to be ashamed of and apologised for.
Neither version matches the actual experience. The experience is more like standing in front of a filing cabinet, holding a notebook, wondering where you went.
Mainstream media focuses on the financial side of retirement — and fair enough, 67% of workers say they feel financially ready. But only 48% feel emotionally prepared. That gap — the one between money and soul — is uncharted territory.
The Gaps
Over the past year or so, I’ve started to notice patterns. Not just in myself — in conversations with friends at the same time of life, in the questions that come up when someone asks “so what are you doing now?” and you find yourself waffling about trimming the hedge or painting the fence.
There are multiple gaps — not just one. And they don’t get talked about.
There’s the Identity Gap: the blank space where your job title used to sit.
The Structure Gap: 2,500 hours a year that used to be fully scheduled from January onwards; the diary is now just a holder for birthdays and dental appointments.
The Contribution Gap: the uneasy question of whether you still matter.
The Relevance Gap: a wealth of expertise without anyone asking for it.
The Domestic Gap: the reconfiguration of the home base when it turns into your only base.
There are other gaps as well. I’m still mapping those as I go along.
These aren’t problems with quick solutions. They’re territory to understand first. You need to name your gap before you try to close it.
Why Me?
I’ve spent thirty years writing for other people’s bylines. Investment banking operations, business proposals, content strategies, reports from the management to the board, reports from the board to the management. I’ve made a career of translating complexity into clarity, explaining things that matter in ways that land.
I’ve never written under my own name. The Retirist is my first attempt.
The timing feels right. I’m not writing as an expert who’s figured this out. I’m writing as someone navigating the same territory, in real time, trying to map it as I go. If you’re looking for someone who’s arrived, I’m not your guide. If you want company for the crossing — that I can offer.
What You’ll Get
Here’s what The Retirist is:
A weekly essay exploring one of the gaps — what it feels like, why it happens, how others are managing their situation. Not rushing to solutions. Mapping the terrain first.
Occasional dispatches from inside the transition — these will be my Field Notes, capturing the small moments, the domestic observations, the Tuesdays that catch you off guard.
A place where “yes, exactly” is the measure. If you finish reading and think, someone finally said what I’ve been feeling — that’s what I’m after. Not advice. Recognition.
I write from West Wales in the UK. Wales provides the backdrop. Castles on every corner to remind you that you’re not quite medieval yet. Changeable weather for metaphors. The coast path for perspective. The voice is British because I am; the territory is universal.
Join Me
If any of this resonates — if you’ve had your own filing cabinet moment — I’d like you to come along. Subscribe below. It’s free to start; paid options will come some time later for those who want more.
This is new territory for both of us. Let’s map it together.