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I am the driver of my bus.

People see their lives as journeys, something famous to long-time Apple users who remember the Tao expression-turned-slogan, "The Journey is the Reward." Robert Frost wrote about taking the road less travelled, 12-steppers think of the footprints on the beach, on and on it goes.

I know a guy who, when he gets too much of what he really wants, feels a bit scared and has to reassert control of himself, regardless of his true desires. On such nights, he sets his AIM "away" message to William Ernest Henley's poem Invictus. You know the one:

It matters not how strait the gate,
  How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.

I don't see my life as anything so grandiose. I am the driver of my bus.

Maybe it's due to my suburban existence, but I never envisioned my life as a walk down a path as much as a city bus ride. It's not a luxury bus with reclining seats and video screens, nor is it a creaky old school bus - it's a Speed-type city bus with serviceable seats, big windows, and easy access.

Why? Yeah, I'm wondering that myself.

I guess it's because I see the journey as one that involves others. The "path" image, to me, is a solitary one, and although my life is largely solitary, I don't think of life in general that way. My bus has passengers who are on the journey with me. My parents drove the bus for many years, and now they ride along. My family, friends, colleagues, everyone who's in my life is on the bus. Some people are on the bus for the long haul. Jobs, schools, and other life segments with an end bring their own riders, but both they and I know they'll only be riding for a short while. I miss them when they depart, but we knew it would happen.

(I can torture this metaphor into mush, trust me. Just don't ask why other people aren't driving their own buses. I'm a big-picture man.)

I stop the bus at places or times in life like work and school, but normally, not many people get on or off. I don't meet a lot of people, and the site of the bus travelling through my life isn't really enough to make people chase after it, if you know what I mean. Sometimes people seek me out, but not often. This is neither good nor bad, but merely how it is.

Occasionally - no more than about three times every two years, I'd guess - I meet someone I like well enough to invite him onboard, if you will. I pull over, stop, and open the doors so he can get on the bus. Most of the time, he doesn't get on. Sometimes I leave the bus stopped with the doors open for months, or even years, because I know I really want someone on board - but I can't make him climb the steps.

I have a habit of waiting a long time for people to board the bus. I don't stop the bus that often. If I actually pull over and open the doors for someone, what Mom would call "trying to air condition the entire neighborhood," then I really want him along. It's not like it's Trump - The Bus, or The Bus of Ultimate Power, but it's a nice enough journey, and I'm often a personable companion. And when I'm an ass, there are others to commiserate with. It's a fun ride.

Eventually, though, I close the doors, pull away from the curb, and move on. No matter how much I want some of these people to take my journey with me, I can't idle forever waiting for them to decide, or to change their minds and go for it. Sooner or later we all have to get going.

I think of all this lately because of a couple of guys I invited on the bus 4-5 years ago. One rode with me for about four blocks before, in this strained metaphor, forcing the doors open and jumping off screaming. The other one more or less follows along, talking to me through the door at traffic lights, but doesn't get on board. He has, a couple of times, but usually winds up blaming me for his choice to ride the bus.

I recently pulled the bus over again to invite the second guy on board, for probably the ninety dozenth time. He even said he'd get on board the bus for a while, but when his decision point came, he went to the same destination another way, again. There's a chance he'll ask to get on board in a few weeks, though.

Last month, the first guy asked to get back on board the bus, too, but he has his own problem: he wants to board the bus back where it was four or five years ago. He wants a journey that never took place, because he didn't board when that journey was possible. He was quite upset that I wouldn't take the bus back four years to pick him up - after all, now he wants on board! Nothing has changed! And it hasn't - for him. I've got four years of travel under my wheels since then.

I care very much for both of them, although the one throwing a tantrum four years back doesn't get it (to him, you either do exactly as he wants or you hate him), and the other one is under the impression that he can raise his hand at any corner and I'll stop the bus for him.

I'm just not sure that's true.

I've stopped the bus too many times, holding the door open just to see him opt to go to the same destination by another method. If he can commit to getting on the bus and then not board anyway, as happened recently, maybe it's just time for him to find his own way. Even if he boards, he's going to disembark pretty quickly. If I enjoy his company, it may be another 4-5 years of stopping the bus and hoping he'll board, even though I know he won't.

He had one foot on the bus Thursday night before stepping back down. On that night, my gut said to me, "If he gets to the next destination via another mode of travel, you know he's never getting on this bus again." Tonight, he got to the next stop in a rickety old scooter, while the bus was idling and waiting for him.

He may actually try to flag the bus down in a few weeks to ride for a while. I don't know if I'll stop for him. I would very much have liked to have shared the past several years with these two guys, but it didn't happen. I'm not going backwards to pick anybody up, and I don't even know if I can take on a passenger who will just as quickly leave and prompt another pull-over-and-wait cycle.

I am the driver of my bus. Sometimes, even though I try very hard to avoid it, the bus does leave without you. Maybe you can catch it at a future stop if you're going to stay on board for a while.

It's not a bad bus. We have snacks.

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