As Christmas inches its way into our lives in the next few weeks, Christmas in May is happening in Boston in Chasing Life world.
Throughout the episode we see April finish off her first round of chemo, deal with the realities of having a family with a wide range of personalities come together, live through a breakup and come to terms with a different kind of attraction.
All of that being said, the top quote of the night definitely goes to this line:
“Being a survivor makes life richer.”
It doesn’t mean life is easier or that you wouldn’t go back in time if you could, it just means that in the present when you have no choice to face a harsh reality there will eventually come a time when you learn to love the richness it brings to your life.
After you lose a loved one or go through something equally traumatic, you figure out that it sucks really bad and you use the question, “Why me?” as a crutch. On Chasing Life, they’re choosing to depict the realities of a young adult battling cancer and being faced with mortality as a non-optional way of adding dimension to your life.
If you had the choice you probably wouldn’t choose to gain insight in this way; but, if there’s one thing you know if you’re reading this is that choice is a fickle friend.
Control is something you crave after you lose a loved one or have to deal with being in a hospital, as Red Band Society has constantly proven. In this episode, April has control over when and how to cut her hair, before she loses it all. She has control of her relationship with Leo and how she chooses to spend his last day before surgery. She has control over how much she has to see of her family, especially when they’re stressing her out. She doesn’t have control over how long she wears an IV or how her rounds of chemo go.
But, she’s a survivor and she lets herself feel crappy when she wants to feel crappy, and she lets it add dimension to her life, when she’s ready.
