“Being here I’ve realized what my final chapter is. It’s this” were the words spoken on tonight’s episode of Chasing Life. The main character, who is once again battling cancer, has decided to go to Italy and spend time dedicated to writing her book. Her book is her story, her memoir of all the gritty tough moments that she has struggled with and continues to struggle with. She watches a sunset and comes to accept her own mortality, saying, “I could die here…literally.”
The writers of Chasing Life have a way of saying all the things that we don’t want to dwell upon. After all, her mother is a therapist. The script is an offering of group therapy for all who tune in to watch it. For some of us, the moments she has to spend in the hospital cut too close to the bone. While it may be hard to watch, the series is focused on its message. It tells you to keep fighting for your life. It tells you to embrace your own story and to share it.
Back to the Future…1995
If I was cast in a new version of the Michael J. Fox classic, I would blast back to an idyllic time: 1995.
I would see victory in the form of electric energy. I would watch myself from the wings as my younger self performed a monologue holding a snake moments after it hissed at me from its cage. Under the theatre’s lights, the snake calmed and slinked around my arms and shoulders. I would see myself shooting a cap gun during the spring musical to make the sound effects for the scene with a fake gun. I would see myself sing and dance as part of the choir to a packed audience. I would see fearlessness.
I would watch my defeat when I put myself on the line. I would watch myself play my longest tennis match ever, fighting over every game, tied and tied again at deuce. I would see fighting back tears of exhaustion as I lost and shook my opponent’s hand over the net. I would watch myself run the second leg of the 4 x 100 at an indoor track meet, drop the baton, and step outside the lines to cause my team’s forfeit. I would work twice as hard the next time I was given the opportunity to be part of a relay to ensure the handoffs were near perfection.
That is what life is in the theatre, the tennis court, the track, and the classroom: it is glimpses of near perfection. It is hard work to get to the place you have dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. High school is where you decide what you will do next to make your dreams come true. After you graduate, it is up to you to motivate yourself every day to achieve your dreams.
Back to the Future…2015.
My future chapter is full of blank pages. What is next? I really don’t know. I am okay with the uncertainty. After all, every day I am traveling along an uncertain path. All I know is that every day, I write another page of the future chapter.
Write. Edit. Repeat.
writerundle 