I spent forty-six years becoming expert at things people needed. Navigation. Weather systems. Crisis management at four in the morning.
I retired two years ago. I am now expert in when the bin lorry arrives on a Tuesday, which checkout queue moves fastest on a Thursday, and the exact quality of light on the Teesside estuary in November.
None of this was requested.
What I have come to understand is that forty-six years of professional attention doesn't stop when the career does. It redirects. The attention that used to read weather systems now reads the quality of the morning. The capacity for noticing that kept ships and crews safe now notices the harbour at seven, the neighbour's departure time, the specific silence of a Wednesday.
Today's piece is free to read. It's about the expertise retirement creates without asking, the attention that doesn't know how to stop, and what it means to become expert in your own life after forty-six years of being expert in someone else's work.
If the writing helped, some readers buy me a Pot of Yorkshire Tea. I’m English and run my days on tea. It’s one of the ways I keep this work independent. I appreciate every kindness — truly.