Tangentially related question: Are those recruiters that occasionally reach out on LinkedIn legit? How do I know if they are or not?
As for your sitch, I know I'm a bit older than you, so that is real factor, but for me, "quality of life" is so much bigger a factor now than it was in the past. My boss moved on about six months ago, and it was down to me and another woman, and she got the job. My group is a result of a merger, so, predictably, those from my legacy company wanted me, and those from the other company wanted her; the one-over manager is from the other company and I have some (legitimate) reason to believe that this was "preordained" at the time of the merger. It bummed me out a bit, but it turns out, this is a blessing in disguise. She's been wonderful to me, I am in the succession plan, I get to do exactly what I've been doing before without ANY of the admin nonsense of running a group, and I'm at a point where as long as I deliver on my "deliverables" I can basically come and go as I please. My job isn't a cake-walk, and being a support-ish person I sometimes get "those" phone calls (two Fridays ago I was on a call from 4:30 to about 8:30 pm as we finalized a settlement offer) but my job is intellectual in nature; I'm providing guidance and informational input, not creating paperwork, so it's a small price to pay in order to have the flexibility to, say, fly to Dallas and drive my daughter back home without burning a week's vacation to do it. I also get to continue to work out of the house, even as we're sort of doing an unofficial/passive migration back to the office and centralizing in certain locations (nowhere near where I live).