THE CORRIDORS OF YOUR LIFE

This was written for one of my closest friends:

Down the corridor of your mind are many doors 

Who knows what lies behind them?

 Life makes you choose.

 In youth, hungry to win, afraid to lose 

Not wanting to disappoint, and eager to please 

You open them with ease. 

 Some bring you failure, or its twin, success 

Some seem a certainty, others a guess 

You find many unimportant 

Or only means to ends 

Behind some lie enemies, 

A precious few hide friends. 

 The trip down this corridor is a test 

To prove to yourself you have what it takes

 Focusing on your goal, ignoring the rest 

Savouring your victories, exposing mistakes 

You press on to be best. 

 At some point down this corridor, far from the start 

When you least expect 

A new door opens to a journey apart 

You meet someone and suddenly connect 

And are led down the corridor of the heart. 

 This new corridor is different though, 

Its journey lifelong 

Behind each door lessons are learned 

New emotions you couldn’t know 

Right and wrong the hard way earned 

Daily paid as feelings grow. 

These emotions conflict as inside you change 

You feel joy and doubt, 

Contentment and pain, 

The bitterness of loss and the sweetness of gain 

As solutions somehow work themselves out 

 In this corridor decisions count 

Both when taken and later 

As consequences mount

There are no victories, no defeats 

No false starts, no repeats 

Only the experience of life made greater.

 In this corridor you go forward and remember back

 Old scars heal When new feelings take their place

 Showing little behind a public face 

While inside you alone can know 

That like your inner thoughts, each scar is real. 

 The corridor of the heart leads to love

 But there is a price to be paid 

For its end is the sum of all decisions made 

Of the anger you have felt

Or the hurt you’ve been dealt 

Of all words good and bad you’ve said. 

But whatever the price this corridor exacts 

Through what is in your grasp

 Or beyond your control 

Without the sum of all its acts 

Your human life would not be whole

 For the corridor of the heart leads to your soul. 

Kew, England 

March 1998