Congratulations! I know the feeling from when we paid off our mortgage about 10 years early. When I was working full time, we often talked about things such as this, especially as we got older and began discussing retirement. Whenever I would talk about paying off the mortgage, others would say that was a dumb move because (at the time) you could make more money in the stock market.
A mortgage is the one debt load that, to me, is easy to justify because the alternative is to rent. While renting is probably a good plan for some folks, my point is simply that there is no alternative other than renting or buying. My wife and I have always chosen to live debt free, so we paid cash for our cars, use our credit cards as a convenience instead of a loan officer, etc.
To me, your home is the only thing that stands between you and homelessness, and it would be in one's best interests to insure, as quickly as possible, that it remains yours. Then, the "crash" of 2008 happened and I saw a number of people lose their homes because they bought into the idea of getting more house than they could afford with an ARM mortgage. My first question when a co-worker got one of those was "What will you do when the interests rates go up?". Even well educated people would insist that this would never happen. I never understand that line of thinking, but then, we still have our place and it is long paid off.
Also, the world looks very different when you no longer have a mortgage because financial hiccups such as a layoff are no longer as big an interrupter as they are when you are saddled with a mortgage. When you have less going out, you can save more to prepare for whatever may happen in the future. Unfortunately some folks can't see and understand that until they reach that point, so the incentive often isn't there because it isn't a reality yet.
The problem with renting in retirement is that rents can go up, and do so quickly. When 2008 rolled around, a lot of people lost their homes, and suddenly, apartments became premium due to supply and demand. Usually, when rents go up, they don't come down later unless something really bad happens to the neighborhood. Of course, property taxes can go up, as can the various expenses you incur in owning a home. For us, these things are brought to a reasonable level by living in a condo where the expense of home ownership such as garbage collection, grounds care, building repairs, etc., are spread across 72 units. Regardless, rent must cover these expenses too, so there is no getting away from that aspect of life, but not having a mortgage leaves more money at the end of the month to address these expenses.
So all in all, paying off your mortgage is a great move and in my own experience, a wise move generally as a part of preparing to retire so you have more control over your expenses in retirement.
Tony