Bouncing along the street with no name on my way home, I almost wished I were walking. My taxi driver dodged cows, dogs, pigs, and chickens as well as the huge pot holes lurking like little lakes of dust between the cobblestones. My indigenous neighbors seemed impervious to the clouds of dirt we left in our wake. We smiled and waved at each other, and I began to think how strange it was that I was happy. My thoughts drifted back to all the roads in my life: where they’ve taken me, where I’m going still, how they seem to circle around and revisit old places from my life, forgotten spaces in my heart.

Of course, the road as metaphor has been explored over and over, from the Yellow Brick Road to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. But it’s worth exploring where the lanes of our lives take us–and how we get where we are.

Roads take us into new territory. All of us are born explorers. Even the less adventurous of us come into this world with the proclivity to get up and walk. We start with our little crawl paths through the house and expand from there. My mother said when I was three years old in Oregon, I disappeared from the yard, and my parents feared that I had fallen off the bluff into the river. Luckily, they found me down the road eating apples with an elderly neighbor.

I have always wanted to see what’s around the bend. I remember flying down I-20 in Texas with all my worldly possessions crammed into my gray Toyota Corolla on my way to SMU in Dallas to begin my life in my first apartment. I was simultaneously terrified and exhilarated.

We moved a lot as I grew up, and I learned to put down roots and pull them back up when it was time to go. I understood that change is life and that not moving is death. I mastered the art of adaptation, like a cloud gives way to the wind and shifts and disappears.

At the age of 45 as a single mother, I found a way to travel with my son by chaperoning student trips. We traveled many trails all over the world. I even learned to drive on the other side of the road in Ireland and the UK. Travel into new territory has been the best gift I have given my son.

Whether it’s a tiny country road winding through farmland or an 8-lane freeway speeding us toward the complex underbelly of a convoluted city, we all long to investigate what lies beyond. Hunting is part of being human–whether we’re hunting the truth, the best route through traffic, or a new deal on Amazon. It doesn’t matter if it’s a foray onto a new path through the forest or an interlude onto an interesting exit from the interstate, we need to take it. At particular points in life, we all answer the call of that unknown yearning to discover more.

Roads take us back. This week, I’m flying back to Arkansas to spend some time with my family and friends for the holidays. Oddly, I’m dreading it a little. I don’t want to leave my new home. And I wonder if it’s the return to the old, familiar that I don’t want or if it’s just the memories that lie in wait for me there. The stretches of I-40 I traveled with my sick father on the way to the VA hospital. Those dirt roads where my ex-boyfriend lives. The curvy black-top roads outside of Morrilton that led to my little house where I struggled to raise my son. What arises in my mind are memories of pain.

Some times in our lives are for living and not reliving. And I guess most of my life has been for living and learning. I don’t want to go back to Arkansas, and I blew up the bridge back to Texas a long time ago. I’m sure all of us have roads we never want to traverse again. We walked those streets and learned their lessons. We move on to the next adventure.

But sometimes we have to do a U-turn and navigate through old territory once again. The people I love live on those old roads, and I will return with a different perspective. Sometimes we have to go back after we have grown and changed. After finally escaping the cocoon we wrap ourselves in to heal, we can flutter higher and see those old paths from a higher perspective. We no longer have to crawl along the same old branches of our previous life. We can revisit those parts we love from a different viewpoint and love those old roads for the lessons they brought us.

Wherever the road takes you this holiday season, may you find healing and love. Whether you spend some time walking alone along your own path to peace in quiet reflection or travel familiar highways back home to embrace family and friends. May you kiss the Earth with your feet no matter where you go and embrace your journey with hope.