I ruminate about the wisdom of retiring when I did, but it had to happen sometime. It is very hard to lose the value of a professional self. I often feel belittled by people I have known after retirement who assume that I am incompetent at things simply because they find me unimpressive. Last night I was on zoom conference where the question came up about writing something we did that I spearheaded. While they assumed I could draft something I was asked to run it by 3 people for editing. What was I supposed to do- say I used to write professionally and circulate my publications? Insist I a small tinny voice that I didn't need all this help? I usually do ask for people I trust to look at dfats, but this means taking walks and gives from people I don't particularly trust and who don't respect me. I will go on with this now because I don't want attention about this, but it feels like parts of my self have cracked and broken off.