Everything Is Different Now

This is technically my first post for everyone reading this, but it's not my first post really - I had several old blog entries which I deleted because they felt so pointless and to be honest didn't feel like they were written by me. They were also over a year old, were irrelevant, and didn't hold anything that really sings true to who I am now, so I deleted them. Apologies, but I assure you, you're not missing out on much. 

So what's with that title, 'Everything Is Different Now'? Well, I guess it's because of quite literally that - everything is different now. I don't view my life the same way I used to. Actually, scrap that, I don't view life in general the same way I used to. For a 16 year old, lately life has been exposed to me as the fragile thing that it is far more than most 16 year olds have to deal with. When did all this start? It started when two boys from my Sixth Form were killed in a car crash 3 months ago. One of them was in my year, but I didn't really know him - Harry. The other one was in the year above, and I'd known him basically my entire life, though in latter years we hadn't spoken - Ollie. It shook me to my core, that their lives, lives so full of potential, were just snatched away at the click of a finger; that someone I'd run round a primary school field with playing Team Tag and football with was just all of a sudden gone. That Harry, the boy who'd driven a tractor into the car park on the day of our Maths GCSE exam and got shouted at by the teachers (and applauded by us) was all of a sudden gone. My opinion on life, and what was important, was starting to change a great deal, but it's more recent events that shook this opinion right to the core and have made me really question life and making the most of it, and what is important to me. 

I have a friend, one of my best friends, called Rob. Since he was 10, he's been on and off fighting leukemia. He was in my Latin class all through Secondary School, and has been an incredible and hilarious friend to me - from playing basketball with our bags and the recycle bin in Latin (the teacher walked in just as we both threw our bags at the bin at the same time, we got hauled out and yelled at that 15 year olds were not meant to act this way), to late night texting about chocolate biscuits, relationships and the Universe, from spending a day of GCSE 'Study Leave' actually going back and forth to the shops and chasing each other round the field, to the Last Day of Year 11 up Wotton Hill when Rob had too much to drink and was sick and said to me "Ah! That lot of alcohol's up - now to get the next lot into me!" - through everything, he's just one of the best friends you could wish for. Hilarious, puts a smile on your face through everything, but you know he's there for you. You know he wants you to be happy, wants you to have what you want, wants to be there for you in any way he possibly can. You know that in him you can trust entirely and he will not let you down. 

In recent months, Rob contracted leukemia a third time - and this time, the final time. Because this leukemia is terminal. 2 weeks ago, he was told he has 3 weeks left to live and was moved from the Children's Hospital to a Hospice, essentially waiting till it happens. The stats are it will happen next week. I saw him on Wednesday with my friends Sam, Curtis and Anthony and the Hospice is lovely, it really is - it has way more facilities than the Hospital (which I've been to a fair few times) and he is happy there. It's unreal to think next week this could all be over, that Rob won't be here, and that statistically that's what's going to happen. I don't think it's fully hit me yet. Possibly because I'm scared for it to fully hit me, I don't know. Sam is his best friend, and I don't know how Sam is going to cope when he's gone. Rob's doing so well though - he was flipping and cooking pancakes for everyone at the Hospice on Tuesday when my friend Laura saw him (PANCAKE DAY) and when we saw him on Wednesday he was wandering around happily, looking like a lunatic in pyjamas and the duck hat I gave him, an 'official tour guide'. I don't get how that life can just be taken away so soon. 

I would type more, but I'm getting into reminiscent ramblings now which are slightly irrelevant to what I'm trying to say I think. I'm going to update this blog more. I really wish I'd updated it throughout visiting him, but I have those Tumblr posts to keep me going, to keep the memories. But basically, this is explaining my outlook on life. 

Rob won't be able to do all these things he wants to do, so I can say now bluntly that I am going to spend the rest of my life pretty much living for him. This is why I believe in grasping the day, doing something you want to do each day, not doing the whole "tomorrow" thing, because tomorrow is not guaranteed. I see life as a gift instead of a given now, because of how I've seen it be taken away. 

So that is why everything's different. Because I'm slowly watching one of my best friends die. This is an experience that is going to and actually is changing everything about how I see the world.

3rd February 2013, on your last day at the Hospital
before you moved to the Hospice, when me and
Sam came to visit;I gave you the duck hat (which you
truly seem to love) and a duck now named 'General
Quacksworth of the 5th Regiment'. That
afternoon was so hilarious, playing Lego LOTR,
building Lego LOTR, general banter, and you calling
Sam a Fuzzknuckle and a 'cheese eating surrender
monkeying French bufoon' <3

From that day of 'study leave' - if I could go back
to that day, buddy, I would, because that day
was perfect, when everything was good and
strong and healthy, and this sums up our
friendship; one of us doing something strange,
 the other one trying and failing not to laugh
at the oddity <3

Rob's inspiring, and incredible and overall the bravest person I know. Throughout everything, he's stayed so strong, continued to just hold true to who he is - he was in hospital, probably in a great deal of pain, but still bothered to text me a lot, wanting to know how things were going with me, despite the fact he's dealing with so much himself; he still cares. He's a huge gift in my life, and I love him to pieces. I don't want him to go. I know I don't have a choice, but I don't want him gone. But what I will do is live a life where I will try to not moan, to be content, and be glad of what I have as opposed to moaning about what I don't have. Hand on heart, Rob mi boi, I will do you proud - I hope I'm doing you proud right now when you're still here to see me.