Living the dream? Is that what we do, or do we sleep our way through life?
Revelations for Cathy.

Easy As Falling Off A Bike.
by Angharad.
part 105.

I watched the lights of the Saab disappear around the corner of the road and returned to the house. It felt lonely and so did I. The temptation to fall into a blue funk and feel sorry for myself was strong, however, I realised that if I did such a thing I would regret it. It seems easier to become depressed than it does to climb out of it.

The alternative was to get stuck in to something, preferably physical, and not too demanding on brain time. I cleaned up the kitchen, although I'd made Simon his supper, I didn't fancy any food myself, too down to eat. Instead I put in the next batch of bread constituents and turned the machine on. If nothing else it would produce some for breakfast if I wanted it and for my dad. I also had to think about the soup I would make for him.

Checking in the freezer produced some chicken portions, so that was solved. I left them to defrost overnight after making sure I had enough vegetables to make up the rest of my brew. This playing housewife stuff was a bit more demanding than I'd ever considered before. I knew that when one person runs after a whole family it can be demanding, but just looking after myself and my dad, plus the odd visitor was taking much more time than I expected. Hospital visiting was a pain, it eats into the day, but not many others were queuing up to do the honours and he is my dad.

I crawled up the stairs, recalling that less than twenty four hours ago I was climbing them with someone who gave my heart a reason to beat, now he was gone and it would be two or three days before I saw him again.

Reality reminded me that I had oodles to do before that, including some more of my university project. I went into the guest bedroom to strip the bedding, the forecast for the next day was good, so I could dry it on the line because it always smells so much nicer than dried indoors. Crikey, I was becoming real little wifey!

I switched on the light and didn't know what to do first, scream with anger or pleasure. On the bed was a large bouquet of flowers, one of those that comes with it's own reservoir of water, next to it was a box of chocolates and beyond that another box.

I picked up the flowers, they were just so beautiful lilies and roses and chrysanthemums, I began to tear up. The chocolates were Terry's All Gold, a selection of plain chocolate covered sweets, I wouldn't need any tea tonight after all. No wonder I was getting fat!

The final box was a bit secretive and gift wrapped. I carefully opened the paper and inside was a Blackberry. My intial thought was, 'I don't need one of these, so he can have it back on wednesday.' Then I calmed down when I began to read through it's functions, and certainly sending emails from it would be easier than trying to do them on my mobile.

Last but not least, he'd left the tee shirt he'd worn for the past two nights and I knew it wasn't for the washing. I smiled, then buried my face in it and inhaled deeply.

I did finally pull myself together and get the washing done, it was folded and ready to hang out the next morning. The bread was rising nicely, or at least the dough was, and the Blackberry was on charge. I had nothing more to do than sit around and look at the flowers which I'd taken into the lounge and placed in the fire place.

I tried to think about my project but all that came was my yearning to see Simon again. I hoped he felt the same as I did. I reread the note he'd left under the packages, it was rather small so I nearly missed it and it could have ended up in the washing machine.

It was a very small card with a dormouse on the front, where he'd found it I had no idea, but it would be going in my treasure box when I got tired of kissing it. The message was very short and simple.

'Dearest Cathy,

Please forgive my dreadful behaviour the other morning. Except for a few short hours that morning, I have never thought of you as anything other than a beautiful young woman, and someone whom I seem to love and need in my life. I sincerely hope it is mutual, because I am going to be around for a very long time and without you, life is going to be empty of the sparkle you have given it.

Love,

Simon.
xxx'

I sniffed the tee shirt again and wiped away the tears. We had come a very long way this weekend and the roller-coaster that was my life of recent months, had climbed and dived higher and deeper than ever before. At its nadir, I wondered how I could go on living, at its zenith, I was so alive I could feel immortality a mere whisker away. In between I'd undulated a little with my dad and doing ordinary things with Simon.

Maybe that was the most special event of them all, I was doing ordinary things with Simon and my dad as girlfriend or daughter, without a second thought of who or what I was. I was also accepted in those roles by others who didn't know and saw nothing extra-ordinary. Effectively, I was actually living most of my dream, something that many would be women never get to do and for which they have my unconditional sympathy.

I felt a warmth surround me as if by making this realisation I had passed some marker, some rite of passage. I had effectively arrived as an ordinary woman and I felt really strange, almost overwhelmed by it. I had dreamed of this for so long and it nearly passed me by.

I know I have some hoops to jump through to get the surgery which will confirm what I already know and the paper work to make it legally official, but that is secondary. In some ways, even my relationship with Simon is compared with this. It's true that it helps to define me as being worthy of being loved by a very handsome and generous man and for which I am eternally grateful. But this sense of being right in myself which has settled upon me, is primal stuff, this is my core, the very heart of me like the DNA which makes me who I am genetically.

This was an epiphany and there could never be any doubt in my own mind now as to who I really was. I was Catherine Watts, I am Catherine Watts and I will be Catherine Watts until the end of my life and perhaps for eternity. If that was the case, I didn't feel so in awe of the concept of endlessness which had always made my mind boggle, because everything in us was so finite. In this moment of self revelation, I had perhaps glimpsed something infinite and connected with it.

I was aware of my mother for some strange reason, maybe feeling something shared with her, which prevously had been tentative or even a feeling of unworthiness, as if I was some sort freak who emulated her and wanted to be like her but because I couldn't, I was soiled or unclean. Now I knew that wasn't the case and that she would have understood had she lived to know the real me. The house no longer felt hostile or scary, and although I couldn't relate to it as my home any more, it was my father's home and I felt comfortable there.

It's difficult to describe how I felt at this moment because that was all it was, a moment, when I knew that I deserved to be who I was and that it was okay with the rest of the universe. Were I religious, I would have described it as knowing that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. Instead, I blundered through my own inadequate descriptions of deep feelings.

The phone rang and it was Simon. "Hi Babes, I'm home and will collect you from your room on wednesday evening. Is that okay?"

Still rapt in my thoughts of the infinite, I seemed resentful to come back down to earth, "Yeah, that's okay."

"Did you find anything?"

"Yes I did," I paused drifting aloft again.

"And?"

"I saw the infinite."

"Cathy, have you been sniffing my shirt again?"

"No, yes I have, but this just happened. I can't describe it to you but I saw or felt something wonderful."

"Not making much sense unless you mean it was made by Blackberry."

"No this was something unworldly, Simon, a glimpse into time and space beyond the imaginations of us mortals."

"Okay babes, I'll leave you with your philosophy and talk tomorrow. Love ya."

"Yes, okay," and I put the phone down.