Week 31: Laughter, Elevators, Coffee and other luxuries

That's it. I've had it with tip-toeing around, hoping that nobody judges me. I've had it with trying to keep up the appearance of the perfect little pregnant lady. Some of you might wonder when I was trying to do this—you just hush now.

I think this realization struck me on Tuesday night. Tuesday is my long day when I work from 8 - 3 and then have two classes from 4 - 9:40. I should explain that my classes at school are small and there are several of us who have been in almost every class together since we started last fall. We were sitting in the graduate lounge between classes, I had my feet up on the coffee table and we were laughing excessively at every little thing. The pressure of the semester is increasingly lifting with each week and the change is practically tangible when my classmates and I are contained in one room.

One of the girls had thoughtlessly asked one of the guys if he'd ever been tanning and we were all paralyzed with laughter because she is white and he is black. Last year we all bonded after making each other uncomfortable with cut-throat honesty during a cultural diversity class. So when, after laughing, he said sarcastically, "It's ok, your people can't help it" we only laughed louder.

It must have been the release of laughter, because when I thought about walking up the million flights of steps to our next class, I announced, "I'm taking the elevator, now nobody judge me. I still work out." I heaved my boot-covered feet onto the floor and maneuvered my body into a standing position. Everyone laughed, so I continued, "When you're carrying all of this extra weight and this extra weight" I gestured to my belly and to my bag of text books "Then you can judge me." Well, that little comment earned me company in the elevator and somebody to carry my bag.

This morning I brought a batch of biscotti to work. Let's face it, what are biscotti without coffee? Lonely. So, just before I poured myself a cup of coffee, I told a coworker, who often makes jokes about what (or how much) I eat, "I'm having coffee and I don't want to hear anything about it." He just said, "If you want your baby bouncing all over the place, it’s fine with me."

So if I'm a little more abrassive than normal, deal with it. It will probably end in nine weeks or so. Until then, I will take advantage of all of the luxuries available to me.