I intended to post next about less serious things, and I do have some in mind. But the uniform I wore to work last night hangs limply on the bathtub rail, and my bed's not yet made, and a few dishes in the kitchen sink wait there, but I don't care. This is my day off, and I'm here before this Dell, working on a third cup of coffee.

The start of another month closer to Spring is encouraging, but I'm not thinking of planting flower beds. I am reconsidering recent things, especially the day and a half I spent with that loony CPR instructor. I want to understand why he singled me out of every other person in the class.

I remember trying hard to please grade school teachers, which wasn't a really bad thing. Doing that heralded me toward a lifetime love affair with learning. But somewhere along that journey of becoming, without realizing it, I became a people pleaser, all the while just grateful that someone approved of me. When you couple that with the development of a true Southern lady, it almost guarantees that I'd still be dealing with trying to undo this today.

I am now on a mission to eradicate this self defeating trait. I am not kidding myself that this will be easy. Habits we've done most of our lives are such a part of us. I see this in so many elderly female patients.

It's almost automatic the way they say "Oh, excuse me", or "I'm so sorry", when they haven't done anything that requires apologies. While the CPR trainer was overly crude and mean spirited, just plain ugly, I do take responsibility for making it so easy for him to rip at me. When wolves attack a pack of other animals, they don't pick on its leader. They go for the easiest prey trailing at the back, the wounded, the sick.

It will take a lot of practice to change reactions I've done most of my life, but I couldn't be more serious about it. This morning when I had just poured my first cup of coffee two women dressed ever so nicely walked to my front door. I just stood there in my scroungy pj's, knowing I hadn't yet combed my hair, and let them place a paper flier about their religion in my hand. After they walked away I threw it in the garbage. There really was no point in being ugly about it. But for a fleeting moment I had felt inferior to total strangers.

Lately I've also realized that I let other people overly influence me, so I am also seriousl working on that. All these years I've been the person in line in the market place more likely to let you cut in, and I'm really good at holding doors for people, sometimes even men.

I remember years ago being at some parent/teacher event where we needed to sign up for something. I already had my half dozen children then, and was pretty good at hanging on to them in crowds, but I kept stepping back and letting other moms go first. and ended up being the last person there. It is kind of nice to surprise someone when they're waiting to check out only a few items. But I'm talking about almost always demurring to others. The situation with the women who came to my door this morning just points up how almost automatic this can become.

But I am changing this. Yesterday on my way to work, before I pulled into the parking lot, I gave myself a pep talk some might think silly. But it worked. I walked into the nursing home with my shoulders up and straight, and a genuine smile for the patients, knowing how fortunate they are that I was taking care of them last night. I even made time to feed a weary man some ice cream.

Feeling better about myself projected a much better attitude to them, and to my hard working nurses aides. Even the paper work I so often dread took less time.

This stoic computer I've sometimes been ignoring, or almost treating like an enemy doesn't know it yet, but we will become good friends. "Mr. or Miss. Dell" As soon as I go shopping for some new things to cheer myself up with, I'm going to charm you off this desk, with all these new and beautiful things I'm learning about you, day by day.