Aging Out

The winter of this year was a fairly dark time for me. I'd lost my job in the midst of a very difficult market for my industry. And this is during a period of my life where, candidly, I'm at the front end of aging out in my chosen profession. (Yeah, it's a thing in tech and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.) In an effort to keep my spirits up, I was looking for photography opportunities and I took a hike at a local trail. From the standpoint of photography, it was a modestly fruitful trip producing a few decent, albeit not spectacular, shots. But from a spirit-lifting point of view, it was not particularly successful. The day was overcast and everything was dormant for the winter. I got this photo of a dead tree stump lying down in the forest, rotting away. It's definitely overstating my situation, because in the big scheme of things, I have been and I remain very lucky in my professional life. So many have had it so much worse. But that dead stump was kind symbolic of my feelings at that moment.