What I'm wanting to say here has buzzed in my head for days. I don't know if the winter storms' mounds of unwanted snow dumped some cabin fever on me. But I think it's more than that. It's like the music I danced to before no longer fits, and I can't keep the proper beat anymore. Do I need a new song, well, perhaps, no, but I don't think it's a maybe. It's a must.

So the next idea or question, now that the first is asked, is where do I begin? I've made changes this last year, and now, and some are reflected in this new place of mine, but I think the task ahead is more inside than out, and when I get that right, the music may emerge.

I don't mean to be self centered, I realize I'm such a minute part of our universe. I'm just trying to understand what my part in it is. God comes first, and family next, and country and neighborhood follow. But I can't serve any of them as I should, until I'm complete.

I start the day praying for guidance, and try to not ask for too many favors, but that feeling of being incomplete still nags. Annual resolutions help, but they're not enough. Old built in survival habits hang around. After using them so long, they seem like a part of me, but that doesn't mean they are good or healthy appendixes, or that they work properly.

When I was five years old, and had appendicitis, the doctor cut out the part that was harmful to me. Now I'm no doctor, I'm a nurse, and I know what's healthy and what isn't, and it's time for self defeating behaviors, no matter how well intended, to leave.

I know I've mentioned this before in another post, but it bears mentioning again. A book that was copyrighted in 1960 was given to me by a lawyer a long, long time ago. I had sought him out because I needed advice. Because he chose this book to give, and urged me to read it, I realized a long time later, that he easily saw how much I needed more self regard.

Some people get tummy tucks or face lifts to try to change their lives. I did not know it then, and obviously not for many years later, but what I needed was a gigantic self-image lift.

Compared to what I've done all these years to believe and feel I'm worth while, I think this mental makeover won't be so difficult. One can use lots of energy propping one's ego up.

I'm still only in chapter one of this tremendous book, but can see how lives can be changed from it. If you're seeing any of yourself in what I write, I so recommend it, PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS, by Maxwell Maltz, only about 250 small pages.

I will also use other things to help me find myself: Be as kind to me as I am to you, and once in a while compliment me. Avoid anything negative. It can only drag us down. Pay attention to what I say, especially to myself. Oh, and here's a very big one, stop apologizing so much. You wouldn't believe how often my elderly patients, and most of them are women, apologize, even over little unimportant things. How can I develop a better image of myself, if I'm still showing me such disregard. Isn't that what I do when I assume responsibility for something I did, or didn't do.

There's work to be done about relationships too. One I'm really working on is being aware of children's choices and circumstances, and caring, for of course I do, but not taking on their responsibilities, or feeling that I should.

For a long time I didn't spend much time with certain grownup children. I didn't know how to deal with problems I saw in their lives. But finally I understood that the answer was already there. I'm not suppose to deal with their personal business, and I'm not suppose to get in the way of their trying to. It's so nice being with them now, not that it ever wasn't, I just made it heavy, too serious in my own mind, and needed to lighten up. Come to think of it, that's exactly what one of my new years resolutions is for.

Last year before I moved away one of my sons would travel quite a distance, up around Greeley, I think, to visit his son who got into so much trouble he was locked up. Several times my son asked me to go with him to visit, but I'd find a reason not to, but any time visiting was allowed, my son was there.

I don't think I stayed away because of false pride. When he went away I felt helpless, and a little hopeless about how it would turn out. But aren't helpless and hopeless nothing more than weak kneed sympathies. Where's the encouragement in that! I think I just refused to deal with it, forgetting that it wasn't about me, but about a boy who needed to know I didn't judge, but cared. When you're too busy keeping yourself mentally afloat, it's easy to miss that someone may need you more.

So I'll continue building up my self, but visit him regularly, and when I walk in the door that a jailor has to unlock, this grandson will be standing there, smiling because I came. That part in the Bible about "I was in prison and you visited me" applies to him too.

He's the one I taught his multiplication tables, although with modern math, they be called something else. And he's the one he and I used to throw cushions off the living room furniture onto the floor, and build crawl through forts for he and I to play in.

What we do now isn't that easy. It still feels strange going behind several locked doors. Last week my son confided that he so dislikes going to that place, but he goes, because his son is there. His young life is nearing a crucial turning point. As much as I'm allowed to I will be there. No more dodging what's uncomfortable or difficult, no more dodging life.

Do I hear a distant drumroll turning into a tune that soon will be a song, I do, I think I do, a new one, mine.