In a previous life I was a cop.
Much has changed since then. If I’m being kind to myself, I can still recognise the old law-and-order version of me staring back from the mirror. Admittedly there are a few more lines around the eyes, a few extra pounds around the waist and one rather obvious visual difference. The hair.
When I joined in 1982, in an era that now feels as black and white as the television programmes we watched, I had a full head of glorious locks. Today a razor completes in five minutes what nature started several years ago.
I’d never really grasped the attraction of reunions. Then again, I’d only ever had one proper job. Being a police officer wasn’t simply something I did. It was who I was.
Last night changed my thinking. What struck me was that reunions are never really about remembering. They’re about reconnecting with versions of ourselves that only certain people knew. Many people in that room knew me when life was simpler and more complicated all at once.
They knew the young officer trying to look far more confident than he felt. They knew the mistakes, the victories, the near misses and the laughter. More importantly, they knew what it felt like when your safety depended upon the courage and competence of the person standing beside you. Most jobs create colleagues. Policing created tribes.
You could spend a single night shift with a crew mate and learn more about each other than some couples discover in years. You saw people under pressure, exhausted, frightened, brave, ridiculous and occasionally all within the same half hour.
I realised there are several reunions taking place at these gatherings. There is the one that happens in the room. Then there is the one that happens in your head. The “what ifs” quietly emerge from the shadows.
What if I’d had the courage to ask that person out?
What if I’d made a different decision that night?
What if I’d climbed into that bath at that place when that thing happened?
Some stories, even decades later, remain safely wrapped in knowing smiles and unfinished sentences.
Psychologists tell us that memory isn’t a recording device. It’s a reconstruction. Each time we revisit the past we rebuild it, adding meaning that perhaps wasn’t visible at the time. Maybe that is why reunions can feel surprisingly emotional. We aren’t simply remembering events. We are rediscovering who we became because of them. And that was the penny-drop moment for me.
Love has many disguises. We often reduce it to romance or attraction, but real love is much broader than that. It’s the person who pulled you out of trouble. The colleague who made you laugh until tears ran down your face. The friend who stood beside you during the worst moments. The mentor who shaped you. The team who fought for you when you weren’t there to defend yourself. The people who made you better than you would have been on your own.
Of course, I may have fancied some more than others over the years. Especially the old blokes who now arrive equipped with grey hair, beer bellies and medical histories longer than their service records.
But somewhere between the laughter, the stories and the memories, I realised that love doesn’t always arrive wrapped in romance. Sometimes it arrived wearing a police uniform.
The older I get, the more I realise that life’s greatest loves are not always the people we lived with, but the people who helped us survive becoming who we are.
© Ian Kirke 2026 & title image
@ iankirke.bsky.social