Amateur, a Self-portrait

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Few if any of us will admit to not being masters of our fate.Up to a point, we are, of course but human life and nature are as complex as the Here-and-Now we have to try and make sense of every day until our past-present-future reaches its conclusion one way or another. 

A wise old bird I once knew warned me never to play amateur psychologist with my own feelings. Sadly, it is advice I failed to take for many years. Consequently, I developed an inferiority complex and lack of self esteem that I tried to confront and deal with, failing miserably. (Yes, my realising I am gay and growing up in a homophobic atmosphere was part of the equation, but only a part.)

Regular readers will know that I suffered a bad nervous breakdown some 40+ years ago. A married reader who confesses to experiencing much the same asks how I 'fully recovered' and 'got my life back to normal'. The sad truth is I never 'fully recovered although , yes, I did manage to knock my life into shape again, even managed to resume my career (thanks to a lot of help and support from various sources and some wonderful people) after several years of being unemployed and seemingly unemployable. It was tough, but if I was a victim, it was of my own making in the sense that I should have sought professional help years earlier. I suspect my breakdown was mind-body-spirit asking for that help, if somewhat late in the day; it had been damaged and badly in need of fixing for far too long. There was never going to be a quick fix.

Although I have been on an anti-depressant for years, it was being given a second chance that made me determined to to address my personal problems head-on and rise above them.  Returning to work in an entirely new environment where only select senior colleagues had been made aware of my history, proved to be a life-saver. I moved into my present flat, and spent years paying off credit cards used to furnish it. By that time, I was conscious of a growing uneasiness within myself. I needed form of creative therapy, and time to pursue it if I was to have any chance of averting another mental breakdown. I gave up a full-time career to work part-time, made time to write (a second life-saver) as well as creating a social life since living alone and often working long hours was contributing to a sense of depression that needs must always be attended to.

I have not been particularly successful with my writing, but enjoy it, and am happy to have achieved a minor reputation as a poet in the 70+ countries that continue to visit my blogs since I started writing them up some ten years or so ago.

Can I live with being a 'failed' novelist? Easily. The few novels I have written can be read in serial form on my fiction blog; only Blasphemy and Catching Up with Murder were ever published; several literary agents expressed an interest in Mamelon 1 & 2, but nothing ever came of it.  

Happy enough in my later years - since recovering from my breakdown sufficiently to get on with my life - I can well relate to the C.S. Lewis quote: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

AMATEUR, A SELF-PORTRAIT

There is a part of me

that no one ever gets to see,

for my living out

its fantasy, a nightmare fiction imposed

on Mind-body-spirit

The mind, it may fight

as best it can to get the better

of forces unknowingly

(and unwanted) hell bent upon infiltrating

the human body

The spirit, it may resist

most dreams dressed up to kill,

yet fall for home truths

last seen feeding on an amateur psychology 

worn on its sleeves

The better part of me

struggles to compensate for secrets and lies

it’s made to house

in a heart hell bent on betraying appearances

behind closed doors

The years, they passed

in tears for my struggling daily to break free

from a mind-body-spirit

that would ransom me to Reason, but Reason

would have none of it

Finally, Reason paid up,

returned me safe and sound to the kind of self

that makes a kinder person

if (still) vulnerable to life forces beyond control 

of you, me, anyone

Now, I grow old, haunted

by the ghosts of those same dark secrets and lies

that held me captive for years,

but there are other ghosts, too, allies in adversity,

come to dry my tears

Such is life and human nature,

last seen seeking to nurture its natural predilection

for love and peace

in a world rarely living up to its promises (or ours)

but… who knows…?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2020