I shut down my law firm and retired 10 years early. It's like being 5 years old again.

• Phyllis Beech-Giraldo, a lawyer, planned to retire at 70 but instead retired at 60.
• She said the pandemic encouraged her to reevaluate how she wanted to spend her time.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Phyllis Beech-Giraldo, a 61-year-old retired lawyer from Fresno, California. It has been edited for length and clarity.

This story is part of "How the Pandemic Changed My Career," an Insider series documenting the moves and moments that shaped people's careers over the last two years.

For more than 20 years, I was an immigration lawyer in Fresno, California. I loved my work and always thought I would continue running my own law firm until I was 70.

But then COVID-19 changed everything.

In those first weeks of March 2020, I closed down my law firm's office and sent my five-person team to work from home

Within a week of working from home, I realized how much time I'd been spending doing things other than my work — like commuting to the office, keeping the office running, and maintaining a presence as the head of the firm. While working from home, I had those hours back to do other things, so by the time June rolled around, I decided my firm would stay remote permanently.

We were totally able to work from home, with the help of Zoom and phone calls. With the extra hours in my day, I started gardening for the first time in my life. My son bought me chickens and I tended to them. Suddenly, I had a quality of life and amount of freedom in my day that I hadn't enjoyed since I was a child.

As my free time expanded, I started thinking more about what I wanted from my life

In a way, my job got much harder during the pandemic — my clients were angry and stressed, uncomfortable and scared, and a lot of that was being taken out on me.

I understand the stress they were under, but in my 60s, I just don't want to have that in my life. Between the added stress of my job and the realization that I could fill my life with the things I wanted, like gardening and reading, I knew it was time for a change.

By March 2021, a year after I moved my firm to remote work, I decided to close up shop

I was ready to retire, a full 10 years earlier than I thought I was going to.

I became busy with the business of closing — calling clients and updating them on the status of their cases, refunding any money that was owed to them, chasing down payments that were outstanding. It took about four months to complete, and by July 15, I was finished and out of the business.

It was definitely an adjustment to shift from running my own law firm to retiring

I was used to waking up in the morning to a flurry of activity — getting ready for the day, having breakfast, going to the office back before the pandemic, reading pages and pages of legal briefs.

For the first six months of my retirement, I totally decompressed. I spent a lot of time reading and gardening.

Now I've started thinking about what else I'm interested in besides law. I want to learn more about cryptocurrency and the possibilities that decentralized autonomous organizations have to provide a financial leg up to people who need it.

I also recently found out that my family lore isn't true — that my ancestors weren't poor farmers but rather slave owners. I've been thinking about trying to form an organization for people whose ancestors were slave owners, where reparations can be provided to descendants of slaves. I want to be able to use this uncomfortable knowledge about my family to improve the country.

Lots of people see lawyers as sharks, but I was so glad to be able to spend two decades using my legal expertise to help people who needed it

Most of my clients were field workers and their families who were struggling to make a living in this country as undocumented people. I was able to use my skills and Spanish fluency to provide effective legal representation and improve their family situations.

I had a thriving practice and a modest income, but I enjoyed what I did and felt I was truly making a difference. I hope I can find a way to keep making a difference in retirement.

After retiring, I have so much freedom in my life

It really comes down to the freedom of time — I can use my time in any way. I can sleep late or get up early. It's like being 5 years old again.