For all practical purposes, it's been 7 years since I had my hands on a mainframe computer. My programming skills have atrophied since then. Yet, I am tempted to throw out a few applications to do some old fashioned Cobol programming. Would I be good at it? I'm not sure anymore. I threw away all of my old manuals, never thinking that I'd ever need them again. Why do I mention this? Well, I'm starting to see ads for remote work that my old skills could be used for. As much as I am a relic, there are jobs around the country which now beg for remote workers. And I wouldn't mind being one of them if I could get hired for a job befitting my skills.
Sadly, I do not think I could brush up on all of my old skills and fake it with the skills I only had training for. There are better qualified people than me out there, and no one wants to pay the big bucks for someone who is as obsolete as I am. So, if there's work for me out there, it'll have to be grunt work. Do I mind where I'm at now? Not really. I was able to retire a few years earlier than I had planned, and I have had the opportunity to explore the world as Marian - something which has helped me grow a lot as a person.
The other day, I went to get a coat altered, getting the sleeves taken up about an inch and a half. Today, when I went to pick it up from the tailor, I got into a discussion with the seamstress - who likely didn't suspect that I was not a cisgender female, except for my size. We talked about her marital problems, and I talked about my widowhood - with me translating my late wife's experience with cancer into that a male would have. As long as the person doesn't know I'm transgender, it makes sense to talk about my past as if I'm cisgender. But I will talk about being transgender if things call for it - there is nothing to hide. It's too bad that I don't have a good excuse to patronize her shop, as I would love to befriend this woman in the same way another cisgender woman would in the same situation. Alas, this will likely not happen.
I may be over the hill, and far from any important rat races. But the view from here looks as good as the view I had 20 years ago - for very different reasons. I now know what I want from the rest of my life, and I'm investing the time to get it. I just wish I had this wisdom while my wife was alive - she deserved to be with someone who fully appreciated her while she was alive....
