The Sliding Doors

Last week I had to go out of London to attend a meeting, I had a train ticket booked for a certain time and certain train, the ticket applies only for this train. If I miss that specific train I would have to either buy another ticket for a later train, which not cheap at all, or not go to the meeting altogether.

As I waited for 10 minutes on the platform I thought of double checking that I'm on the right platform to be surprised that I was not and that my train will leave in 1 minute from a completely different platform.

I started running towards the platform and gathering all my strength to balance my heavy bag, heavy coat and avoid bumping into people rushing to catch their trains like me.

This moment felt like a "sliding door" moment, a defining moment that can change the course of what's going to happen ahead of me.

Sliding door moments are called that after the 90s film sliding doors where the main character's life is examined upon two scinarios one where she catches a train and goes home early to find her boyfriend cheating on her and then she takes certain decisions that changes the course of her life and it also examines her life when she doesn't catch the train, doesn't find out about her cheating boyfriend and ends up leading a different life than her other self.

Often times we are faced with these sliding door moments where we take a certain action, say a certain word or make a certain choice that changes the course of our lives.

I sometimes like to imagine the different Ellies who are leading different lives because of an action that I took differently.

The me that applied to enroll at Music School instead of faculty of Arts who might be playing different musical instruments now, might be still living in Egypt and working as a music teacher.

The me that went into the internship to Italy instead of declining it to get married, and how she might have been speaking Italian now, got a job and settled in Italy.

The me who chose not to have children and focus on her work and career instead and all the places she managed to visit and all the experiences she had.

The me who chose to look at her old blog, sighed and said to herself I can never write again, I have nothing to write about, what a waste of time.

And the me who might, just might press publish and get you thinking of all your "sliding door " moments too.