Reclusive = Easily Forgotten

This morning, a co-worker messaged me briefly. Here's the bulk of it:

She said: Hey, good morning ... so the beard is back huh?
I said: Ya, for the moment
She said: for the moment?
I said: I need to maintain my disguise
She said: well .. you are incognito anyway... no one remembers you work here anymore anyway ;)
I said: That's the plan

Sigh.

Even though I played it off and pretended that it meant nothing, her last statement affected me more than it normally would have. I guess I'm sensitive lately. Usually I would've told myself that it's good to be able to escape from the attention of people so easily. But today I took the statement to mean that my presence/contribution at work is unimportant.

I suppose this comes with being a recluse. Still, I do like to think that my work matters.