finding peace in the valleys.

I remember taking this photo. It was last summer and I was traveling on the California coast with my parents. The Pacific Ocean was on our right, but you couldn't see it. There was fog hiding it. You can almost barely make it out if you squint just so. A few cars were stopped at a look out and we joined them. There's something really hauntingly beautiful about fog. Had it not been there, we would have seen a vast ocean. Instead, we saw vast nothingness. Still, all the onlookers knew what was there. Not because we could see it, but because we could hear the waves and feel the salt.

Sometimes it's hard to look inside oneself and find peace, especially when the going gets tough and milestones feel more like marathons. A marathon you may not have signed up for, thankyouverymuch. See, you can do it all accordingly — cross every t and dot every i — and there will still be a landslide waiting to happen. Because even if you're the fiercest planner (me!), something's always going to get in the way, like a heavy fog. The thing about fog, though is that it forces you to peer, to imagine, to look really deeply, to have faith in what's there, even when you can't see it.

Minutes later, as we traveled down the winding road, the fog lifted. We peered over to our right and saw the most breathtaking, beautiful sight — our first expansive view of the Pacific since the start of our road trip. The ocean had never disappeared or receded. We were the ones that kept pressing on, waiting for that precious glimpse, having faith that it existed and holding steadfastly to that. In the midst of it all, though, we discovered that the fog was quite beautiful. We found peace in the valleys. In the waiting. And we were met with a view that not even the most talented dreamer could have dreamt up.