The Edge Of Discovery

The Edge of Discovery


I’m standing ready on the brink of tomorrow
From yesteryear I refuse to borrow
Any time. For what’s already gone has been spent
And there is nothing spare that can be lent,
Therefore I am turning my back on any sorrow.

‘Best foot forward’ will be my motto from now on
What has been is over and truly gone.
The future lies a-waiting just ahead of me
And I embrace it unreservedly,
The cloak of regret I simply refuse to don.

My past mistakes I am already forgiving,
I am straining at the leash of living
I stand tall, here on the edge of discovery
And what I hope is my recovery
Through the dregs of life for beauty I am sieving.


I wrote this poem on the first day of the year. A new year and a new set of resolutions. I feel as if I really am on the brink of something new and exciting. If my dreams are realised this year I will definitely have been given a second chance. If I am lucky enough to start again, have a second stab at preparing for old age I don’t intend to mess it up like I did in 2007.

The mistake that I made then was I believed a salesman’s spiel. Now I need to escape to save my sanity and to find myself again before I disappear completely.

I know that I can’t escape ‘Old Father Time’ but I can have a dance with him before the clock stops.

I am intolerant of intolerance and I am tired of either speaking up to register my objections to the way some people place others in compartments that they have chosen for them or of living in a way that avoids the confrontations. Either way I end up feeling guilty or angry at what I am becoming.

I am lucky because I can escape inside myself in my writing poems, lyrics for songs and my short stories. However a life of avoiding issues that I believe passionately should be dealt with is no life at all. The ghosts are growing in number, that surround my bed on sleepless nights and some of the ghosts are still alive!

I have always been somebody with a positive outlook on life and see a glass as half full not half empty but in the last four years it has seemed that my glass has and is being constantly knocked over.
I believe and I tell myself that I deserve better than this in my retirement.
I have many things in life to be thankful for, many blessings to count. However, just as in 1990 I decided that after twenty-two years of looking after family and house that it was going to be my turn to achieve a dream and I did by embarking on a nursing career that spanned over eighteen years, it is I have decided my turn to be selfish again.

This is to be my second chance at achieving my dream and probably my last chance. My life is changing dramatically now and if I am successful in my plans and make my ‘great escape’ will change even more radically.

My second chance involves throwing caution to the winds and taking a chance. Making changes in where and how I live is scary and is not without risks. Pessimists around me advise me not to tempt fate as I may be leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Optimists say the opposite of course I should ‘go for it’ take a leap of faith. Either way seems to involve an overuse of clichés.

Joking apart, I feel that if I don’t get out soon I will go under. The straws at which I clutch seem to get fewer and fewer. The silent majority stay silent and seem to withdraw into a sea of acceptance but then they do not have the same opportunities as me to still make choices.

What is it that I am trying to escape from? You may well ask. It is not some dreadful prison camp, or deprived area with hoodlums causing daily mayhem, it is not a job I hate or an unfair boss; no it’s a luxury retirement village.

This I believe should be a place where the enjoyment of an active, or active as possible, life should be encouraged and supported. To be fair there are some staff members that still work towards that end but unfortunately there are others that don’t! I also believe that there should be equality. All residents should be dealt with in a similar manner.

My second chance will never again involve me being governed by a management that gives way to a minority of people who appear to have no consciences when the demands they make are at the expense of another resident’s happiness or quality of life.

Even if I still owned a motorbike I am probably a little too old to try to leap the fence to freedom so I will have to rely on the more conventional method of selling my apartment and moving out.

Moving out and moving on will enable me to enjoy my life to the full.
My second chance I believe is about to happen.

I also believe that opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

I created the above item last May and that was when I made my escape but that story will be another item