When I started this blog the aim of it was to help those who were questioning their lives and where they were going to perhaps make a drastic change, or to listen to what life was saying and question where they were going.

I have always been honest and told you about our adventure warts and all, and also about what drove us to make that change and live the life we are now living in France.

This post is one of my theories on life, and how I look at my life now and choose to live it.

As we all know, whether people like it or not, we are on a journey I am sick of all that crap about the J word, or that people shouldn’t be saying they are on a  road, you ARE on a road between being born and dying, and what type of journey you choose to take will depend on how you look at what life really is.!!

So..Picking up on the fact that we are on a journey I have come to think of my life as a mini bus: it has 14 seats and as I go along the road I need to decide who (really think who if I only have 14 seats) would I have on my mini bus who will influence my life, the decisions I make and the life I choose to live. Most importantly for me is that they are people that do not judge me.

For those readers in far flung countries who don’t  know what a mini bus is it is a van with 14 seats, some at the front where you get on, and then rows of two seats with some at the back double doors for an emergency exit.

The mini bus of life meanders along the road of life with many stops. At some stops people will get off because their adventure, or life, is going in a different direction to yours. They are not bad people they just need to go down their own road, and the road of life is not a straight road it has avenues and lanes along the way, and there are many.

But this is where people don’t get it: they get upset when those people get off, get offended, try to keep them with them, keep them happy, when in fact if they really looked they have been going in a different direction for a long time and some of those people have not been making them happy, for some time. But sometimes when people get off a persons mini bus of life the person in question gets afraid and starts to question what they, themselves, are doing. They think that it must be something about them, when it isn’t, it’s just that the lives of those involved are going in different directions. I learned over my life that sometimes we have to let people go, because ultimately someone else is doing the driving!

Now I always stop and evaluate who is on my mini bus, (sometimes I have considered having a very small trailer on the back!) but I have resisted temptation because you cannot keep everyone happy all the time, and, in all honesty, you will drive yourself nuts if you try.

I believe in life we all need to look at the people on our mini bus and if they are right for us at different times in our lives, and if they are not  then we need to drop them off at a stop. The time may come when we may let them back on at a later stage in life, when both of us have grown as people and learnt from what life has shown us.

I know from things that have happened to me over the years, and as I have got older over the past few years in particular, that over time I have let the wrong people influence my life; I had a great big red bus full of people that did not give a crap about me, and only had their own agenda. People who wanted to tell me how to live my life, and even who to live my life with!

When I was younger I let them do this, I listened because I wanted to keep them happy, but now I realise that no-one has the right to tell anyone how to live, seriously, it is their life. So needles to say I don’t have people like that on my mini bus.

In addition since moving here some people have never contacted us again, and I realise that our decision to have an adventure possibly touched a nerve with them because they live each year as they lived the last: go on holiday at the same time, to the same place, with the same people; and if you choose to take an adventure such as ours then you need to understand that those people will get off your mini bus, because you frighten them, because they want to stay ‘safe’. In these instances it is for the best that they choose to disembark.

The people who mean the most to me have seats towards the front of my mini bus, the people who influence my life and care about me have seats in the middle, and those who are starting to get on my tits have seats at the back double doors so that if I need to I can pull the handle and let them fall out the back onto the road.

In addition I always leave four seats empty, why would you fill your mini bus full when you do not know what life will show you, and who life will send your way? It is very true that you have to let go of the old to make room for the new. You also have to leave room for people who come back into your life, for me others have got back in touch, some over fourty years later.

My friend Russell being one if these. When he sent me music to listen to that had not been released when we had lost touch it was clear that  he still knew what I would love, knew over the 18 years that we lost contact that I would love Mary J, David Gray, and so many more. I have written of the music he sent me before because it truly made me realise that we have always been friends, he just had to get off my mini bus for a while. I look at it that he got off at stop number 18 and got back on at stop number 36 (18 years later).

I know that some friends who I love very much have dropped me off at a stop because I am on a different road, in France now. And I get that, it is not because they do not love me, or still care for me, it is just that right now they do not have room for me on their mini bus because they are letting others on instead. I understand.

The point I am making folks is do you have a bloody great red London bus full of people? Do you think that having lots of friends and people around you makes you happy? Do those people affect the way you live your life? Do they make you feel bad about the people who you choose to spend your life with? Are you going out to places when you don’t really want to? Doing jobs for them when you don’t want to? Spending money that you don’t have because you feel that you should be able to match up to them? Staying where you are to make them happy? Justifying yourself to the,? WHY?

Really folks, look at your mini bus of life now and ask yourself who really matters to have a seat? Keep you mind open to letting others back on when necessary. But remember you only have 14 seats!!!

Something to think about.

Moisy