Over the weekend I watched Sliding Doors. It's one of the few movies I own. I adore it, and not just because of John Hannah, with whom I would be absolutely smitten if Doreen hadn't already claimed him as her future husband.

The film, if you're not familiar, explores the concept of how something seemingly insignificant can affect one's life immeasurably. One of the first scenes is the critical determining moment in the main character's life - in one instance, Helen misses the train she is trying to catch, and in the other instance, she squeezes through the closing doors at the last minute. The film then follows the two divergent paths of her life that result from the difference in that split-second, playing out what happens to the Helen who misses the train and to the Helen who catches it.

We've all read the stories of people who should have been in the Twin Towers the morning of 9/11 but weren't because they slept through the alarm or had a doctor's appointment. As a control freak, stuff like that should scare the shit out of me because it is proof that trying to control the fate of my life is ultimately futile. And yet I find myself fascinated, not frightened, to consider that my day may be significantly affected by whether or not the stoplight ahead is red or green. Or to wonder how many close calls I may have had that I never even knew about. Or to ponder how my life would be different if I'd been born on the opposite coast.

Rob never intended to be a geek genius by trade. Although he's been writing computer code since elementary school, his true interest growing up was science and, particularly, the environment. He majored in biology. During college he applied to be a summer intern at an environmental agency. To save Rob a long-distance call, his mom called the agency to get the address for where to mail the application, and when the lady recited "Fifty-Eighty-Three Main Street" his mom jotted down 5083. Except, the address was actually 50803. They never received his application. His dad suggested he get a job with a family friend instead, which he did. He wasn't terribly excited to spend the summer working with computers, but it was a job. Turns out, it was a job that completely changed the course of his career. That one insignificant number in the address, a zero no less, was Rob's sliding door.

The end of the movie suggests that the various possible paths of our lives eventually converge, and that no matter which side trail we take (or are taken on), we still get to where we're supposed to be. Although I like the idea of a little magic in the universe, I don't believe everything happens for a reason. I believe things just happen. But still, or maybe because of this, I find the film's ending comforting. The closing scene doesn't actually give us a Happily Ever After, but just presents the possibility of one. In the moments after the hospital's elevator doors slide shut, whatever happens will happen. The comfort is in knowing that the characters will adapt. They may make sense of things by seeing a pattern in the chaos that isn't really there, or they may accept that life is random and all they can do is enjoy the ride. But, they will work with whatever happens next, and it's that ability to accept and adapt that is entirely within our control.