`I've no regrets. I've had a great time. When my next novel, Scarlet Feather, comes out in August, I will have published 16 books, and I've been writing my column for The Irish Times for 32 years'
So here we go, my last regular column. I promised myself a year of advising the nation about love, families, life, behaviour and money - now it's over. And my most sincere gratitude to all those who wrote in.
Huge post-bags about anything at all to do with money, much smaller ones about matters of the heart.
Fairly substantial male objection that we were all far too nosy, hands-on and manipulative in the lives of others. They would apparently let everyone run lemming-like to their doom without having even the mildest crisis intervention.
Quite a few older women readers accused me of making up not only these problems but all the answers as well, which presupposes an amazing swansong year of writing myself letters and awarding myself book tokens, while giving real names and addresses.
I was told that I only published letters that agreed with me, which can't be true. Do you remember the time a woman wrote in saying her father didn't want a funeral? I advised her to take no notice of his last wishes and give him a great funeral. Just about nobody agreed with me, but I published a rake of their letters.
I made a lot of friends too, people who wrote in every single month even if only to apologise that they hadn't any real insight about the particular problem in question, but had been giving it thought.
And I got to know, through their letters, some of the wise pupils of Killina Secondary School, Rahan near Tullamore, whose teacher, Stephanie Connor, suggested they deal with Ireland's angst every month.
They took everything seriously, as I wanted people to do, and sent amazing advice about bungee-jumping to cheer up the lonely or depressed.
And of course I believe that the whole thing was a vitally important social fin de siecle document, pinpointing exactly how the people of Ireland felt about everything over this past year.
There are ways that I would love to put up for examination the 11 problems that I still have on my desk, including one about soliloquies at funerals, one about telling your female friend that she is growing a moustache and one about how to ask a colleague could you please have the £100 back.
And there are ways that I will miss creeping into Glenageary sorting office, to collect my Post Office box mail, terrified that they might think I was getting literature about rubber or leather fetishes and even more terrified in case there would be no answers to my Irish Times problems at all, and nobody would have written in.
But it would have to stop eventually - this worrying myself sick over other people's anxieties, and getting the rest of you to worry too.
So a chronological age seemed a good time to go.
The experts all advise against ever shutting any door too firmly if you can manage it, so the occasional article from time to time would be lovely. It won't be considered a tenor's farewell, if I slide in with the odd thing to say now and then.
And I thought I should stop it while I still had a pulse and was able to get on with things, which was why I asked for this last column of Help Yourself to offer advice about letting go.
The good news is that the jury is no longer out, retirement is the way to go. You
just call it different things - like change, or moving on, or relaxing, or progressing. Those are the kind of words you use - instead of anything to do with age, sell-by dates or out to grass.
This time I was very, very proud to collect the huge contents of the PO Box - there were marvellous ideas.
Buy a country house and get horses. Thank you again Tullamore, but if you only knew how terrified I am of horses . . .
Go to tap-dancing lessons. Yes, of course we all want to, I did try 25 years ago at the London Dance Centre and even bought the T-shirt which we used to mop our faces as we thought the palpitations would never die down.
Learn a verse of poetry every single day. That's a good idea, I'll try next week, but doesn't it take six months to learn a verse of poetry at our age? It certainly takes a year to learn what you should respond with when your partner opens two no trumps, once you've picked yourself up off the ground, and I suppose we could all have coped with that if we had learned it at the age of 10.
Be an extra in movies. Hmmm, I'm not totally sure. I've seen them - it's exhausting - you'd be better off working. The only time I was ever an extra, everyone else went to Make-up and Wardrobe to dress up as a 1950s person, and apparently I didn't need to.
Learn juggling tricks. Well yes, but honestly, where exactly would you do them? I've only recently stopped singing terrifying versions of The Purple People Eater at folk whom I wrongly imagined to be entertained by it.
Write to the Retirement Planning Council of Ireland - it'll set you straight, sending brochures and packages and advising you about its courses. There's also The Retirement Book by Anne Dempsey, which it publishes. It is full of info and you can buy it in bookshops or through the Council at 27 Lower Pembroke Street, Dublin 2.
Listen to John Quinn's radio programme, L Plus: Living and Learning Beyond 50. Yes, I tried to do that, but like thousands of others, missed most of it as it was on at a time when we were all still at work. However, they say it will be repeated in autumn at a more suitable time of day. And if you write to John Quinn at RTE he will send you the comprehensive brochure, packed with information and addresses.