.waiting for fog.

creeping backwards out of my driveway the other morning, there was a fog that my headlights strained to pierce through. the sky was thick with the haze and i wondered how painful the drive to work would be for my eyes.

due to how early i get to work, i would have to wake up before five a.m. if i wanted to have a nice leisurely breakfast at home in the mornings. i choose to eat in the car and have the extra minutes to sleep.

on this particular morning, i was extra careful and almost felt like even my breakfast consumption could get in the way of my driving focus. it was that foggy. when i arrived in my classroom, the one upstairs window i have welcomes in the outside world that is still buried in blackness. this time, the blackness had a texture to it from the fogginess.

once the light of day began taking over the dark, the fog was stagnant and i could make out its crevices and crannies. eventually, as usual, the fog lifted and was washed anew by the natural clear invisibility of air. this rare foggy morning led me to think about the fogs we sometimes carry with us in life.

there are moments, some lasting only hours others lasting weeks, where it can seem as though our lives are encapsulated in a fog. thinking clearly during these times proves tricky as the denseness rests heavy on emotional shoulders and seeing what is around us takes more straining than usual. just as with a fog in nature, everything in the rest of the world keeps rotating as it always has.

much like with driving, there are certain measures you can take to help get through the fog. keep your beams on low- in life, this equates to not putting your emotions into high intensity because all that straining to get through the fog of life usually makes it that much harder to see clearly. i'm personally guilty of this sometimes. when i feel myself being taken over by anything foggy, i fight extra hard to get myself out of it. when i'm already in a distressed state, i am not sure that putting on my life's strongest beams does anything for my sense of clarity. instead, i am aiming to practice a calm, low beam approach to seeing my way through and waiting for the fog to lift. why fight what comes down on me? instead...wait for it to lift and travel cautiously through it.

regardless of the length of time, once that fog eventually does lift and we see with clarity again, there is nothing more focused than that moment. both in nature and in mind. most importantly, it will always lift. always.