In the 25 plus years since my husband and I have been together, we have logged hundreds of thousands of miles in cars. With seven kids in scattered places, with friends and family across the country, we’ve driven to everything from Ultimate Frisbee tournaments to new baby visits to just getting a weekend away by ourselves.

So more than once, with the combined impact of the lack of geography in my brain (a deficit as the navigator!) and the compelling nature of our conversations, we would miss a turn or head the wrong direction or drive well beyond our destination. Although I am rarely the driver, on one memorable ride, taking my son to UConn to start his freshman year, I remember asking “Should I be seeing a ‘Welcome to Massachusetts sign?’” Of course, you know the answer to that one!

In the early years of our marriage, car time was among the few uninterrupted times we had. We saved thoughtful conversations for those trips, conversations that didn’t require input from any other voices. And, believe me, there were lots of voices with lots of input!

Suffice to say, that just about every trip has had at least a few of what we call “Elliott U Turns.” We have come to accept them as a given, a matter of course, a fact of life and no one gets rattled. In fact, we’ve come to believe that a trip without a U turn is just not a trip!

The truth is that sometimes life is filled with the need for us to change direction. Circumstances change and we need to make new choices. We realize that what we are doing is perhaps not serving us well or is even harmful to us. We recognize that moving forward will require us to modify our course or even start a new one.

It is, of course, easy to do that on the highway. Especially today when GPS is our constant companion. It’s much harder to do when it applies to our career or our relationships. It takes a lot to understand that we need to change but it takes so much more to actually make the change.

If we recognize that we might be on a path we want to diverge from, how freeing it would be to think of it as just a simple U turn, one small move at a time to help us find that which feels right and authentic to us. Giving ourselves that acceptance and that grace, helping us to fill our full hearts.