The Freedom to Back Up

My friend Darlene got a ride home the other evening. The kind gentleman slipped his aging car in to her driveway and bid her farewell as she moved from the car to her front door. Hearing a noise and craning her neck out her window five minutes later, she was surprised to see him still parked in the driveway.  Donning her jacket and boots and stepping back out in to the night, she leaned in to the window as he rolled it down, and asked him if everything was alright, to which he sheepishly responded, "I forgot that this car doesn't have reverse".

This story not only made me laugh at how we in Alaska hold on to our vehicles longer than residents in nearly any other State do.  It also got me thinking about how I sometimes get so caught up in moving forward with plans, ideas and activities, occasionally plodding along even though my initial enthusiasm has diminished or my initial reasonings have changed, that I often forget that I have a working reverse mode; that is to say that in most instances, I can change my mind, back up, sit at the fork in the road, put things in to reverse and/or consider an alternate "route".

Reverse:

1. Change something to opposite

2. Go backward

3. Turn something inside out

4. Revoke ruling

5. Gear for backward movement

6. The opposite

7. Change to opposite direction

8. Opposite to usual or previous  arrangement