<b>By Cherimie Crane Weatherford</b>

As a woman, I have treasure trove of should haves, could haves, didn’t attends and forgot to achieves of which to feel enormous amounts of guilt. Should a day arrive without its very own new set of guilt stricken occurrences, I simply open the trove and choose. Much like a women without her phone, it is a rarity that any breathing female greets the world, and certainly not the general public, without some form of guilt fashionably formed around already weighted shoulders.

Besides the unused hairbrush, the unopened container of must have make-up and the outfit I knew would never fit, I find myself staring at my old lettered friend with insurmountable hesitation. Collecting almost as much dust as those darn unread books, sits my once well visited laptop without the typical, topical tattering of my fingers channeling my thoughts, actions and inquiries of a life less told. Cue the guilt.

Perfectly acceptable justification for having one too many cupcakes, leaving any social event a little too early and crying over basically anything, pregnancy is a shopping mall of readily available and oh-so-affordable excuses. Somewhat exhilarating, a tad bit habit forming and all in all counterproductive to day to day living, the pregnancy plight offers more than just swollen feet.

In between potty breaks, buffet binges, body building (not necessarily the gym kind) and staring at tiny clothes as if they just landed from Mars, I have many a time passed my old lettered friend vowing to visit. Anyone who has read anything I have ever written understands my inability to write about the most serious of common life events. Pontification of seemingly mundane moments is much more comfortable for me than facing the literary mirror of raw private life.  Absolutely not due to the shortage of mind boggling and keyboard tempting events that have occurred both through encounter and through thought as the past few months provided a novel of material. The simple fact that my burgeoning belly has morphed me into more of a public science project than a happy-to-blend-in woman has supplied me with enough odd human interaction to overload Wikipedia indefinitely. My newfound knowledge and respect for public restrooms could forever change programming of GPS. As for the all-consuming awkward conversations, there is no columnist alive who could compete, this I swear.

My absence is credited only to the cement of caution and maybe a little can be levied to my newfound narcolepsy that finds me anytime I sit for more than 2.4 minutes. Pregnancy hasn’t paralyzed my fingertips and certainly not my need to express my opinions on everything from gas station gab to women blessed with bad attitudes and worse shoes. Encroaching swiftly on nine months of human incubating, I waddled over to my once-tattered friend and realized quickly how easily old habits return. Possibly the most comfortable I have been in months happened simply by beginning to write with no particular subject in mind.

My little one will be making her debut soon and I shall find an entirely new trove of excuses for not doing, being, saying and fulfilling day to day duties. I assume that is a fair trade for exchanging sleep for diapers; however, thanks to the encouragement from those that have read my silliness over the years, my treasure trove of guilt will weigh slightly less. Maybe I will leave my mane tangled, my garden unplanted and my make-up unmade, but I will continue to share my tainted view of the simplest of oddities that make life worth discussing.

I am back y’all.