Three Questions

One.

What would you do if you were told you had one year to live?

Finish my GCSEs, then pull out of Lewes.  I don't believe that the meaning of life lies in knowledge.  I therefore would not spend all of my time at college wanting to be elsewhere.  I would also buy a horse.  A competitive horse who is very very good, but the kind I like: big bugger with attitude.  As long as they can do it.  I would then phone Hickstead and apply for their show.  Unfortunately that would have to be this year because otherwise I'd be dead.  So I'd have to phone them and tell them that it's always been a dream of mine and that I've only got a year to live.  I suppose I would just have to hope that they let me, and if not then I think I would (for example) contact William Funnell, or the Whittakers, explain my case and hope that they'll  give me one of their rides.  If that works.  If not, I'd probably get myself fuckloads of press and all, and hope that the whole case would work on the Bunn family (who run Hickstead.  I think.).  That, or ride through Spain, in aid for a charity supporting research into whatever I'm dying of.

So I'm either riding through Spain or in Hickstead.  that'll take a lot of work, so I'll be working towards it for a while.  I think I'd end up doing both - both are important to me - so that's at least half a year gone.  I'd have to, inconveniently enough, make sure that 2 people especially are not hurting too much.  I'd have to teach myself to understand if they wanted to cut me out because it'd be the best for them.  I'd let myself hurt for those I love.  As long as I had someone: my family; my absent friends.  The real ones if they want.  I'd tell the people I don't like that they suck and tell Dave that he's a grass smoking tosser.  I'd tell my mother that I never liked him and never told her because I was too scared of hurting her, and that I only pretended to like him for her.  And that I hoped she was very fucking grateful.

I'd write a will, too.

Two.

How would you want people to react?

I want people to have been affected by me and what I've said, done and everything to them, so I want to be remembered.  In an ideal world, I want to have the person who would always wear my name on a ring, always, but it's a big thing to ask a 16 year old.  It's condemning them to never properly move on from me and that could, essentially, change their life completely.  I wouldn't want that.  I would just want them to sometimes think of me and miss me.   Not so much it hurts, just so much that they know I was there.  I want people to like that I lived, hate that I died.  I want them to dislike it, naturally, but - in short - I don't want people to hurt but I want people to notice.

Three.

What would you do if you were then told you weren't going to die?

I would reapply to Lewes and pick up my life again.  What else can I do?  I probably wouldn't have the guts to tell most of the people; I'd just get on with it and hope that the ones who mattered didn't mind I'd put them through so much shit, and realised that I'd been through it too...ish.  I'd just miss my gap year and let everything fall into place.