Sometimes, when you're driving, you wil find yourself in the wrong lane, or you make a wrong turn.

This is no accident. It is Fate subtly moving you in the direction you should go, rather than where you want to go. Fate pays no attention to your desire to get home or go to the supermarket. It has its own agenda.

We've been conditioned to ignore the subtle tug of Fate, to dismiss it as chance or coincidence. But when you're not fully involved in something it can exert a little influence and cause a larger change.

Yesterday, I was driving home and I found myself in the wrong lane. I hadn't been paying attention and had wandered (been guided?) into a right-turn only lane. It happens to me a lot. This time, though, instead of getting back in the right lane and driving home, I let Fate take the wheel. I let instinct guide my way.

My subconscious shifted into gear and took the right turn, and from there it decided to take me to visit all my old haunts. The homes of my childhood friends, neighborhoods I used to walk through, trees I had climbed, places I once knew:

This street is where I used to play kickball with my friends.

This house is where my old best friend used to live.

This corner is where my mother and I slid into a snowbank and laughed and laughed and laughed.

One by one I met my ghosts. Memory after memory after memory flashed through my mind. I paid no attention to the steering wheel; I was too busy reliving my past. My subconscious guided me from place to place, taking bike trails, old school bus routes, half-remembered rides in my parents' car. I was just a passenger.

I remembered all my old friends and neighbors, my parents, and I remembered how they helped shape me. My every thought and idea is somehow affected by them. These people gave me my sense of humor; those people gave me my musical taste; these taught me to read when I was 2.

I drove around in a daze of memories and paid hommage to my past. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to all my ghosts. I promise I will visit again soon.