Here's the rub about any phrase that begins "If only..."

If only I had a new job...

If only I had a job...

If only I had a different boyfriend...

If only I had a boyfriend...

If only (fill in the blank), then everything would be okay and I'd be happy and I'd stop complaining and I'd no longer be scared and life would be fantastic.

How many times have I said (or rather whined) that exact sentiment to a friend? And how many times have I then gotten said job/object/boyfriend, enjoyed it for five minutes or so before promptly discovering it didn't fix that that feeling that something was still missing?

Lots.

I've been incredibly lucky in that over the last year a lot of my "if only"s have come true--and we're talking BIG "if only"s...things like "If only I got a book deal," "If only I could move to New York." And while I'm over-the-moon grateful for them, sometimes instead of making me really excited, they make me really...scared. Like now that I have these fantastic opportunities, I have to be reallyreallyREALLY careful that I don't make any mistakes or else they'll be taken away and given to some super-human, non-mistake-making individual who can do it better than me.

And if you ever meet one those people walking around amongst us mere mortals rather than, like, spending all his or her time meditating on some mountain top in Tibet, please let me know because I'd love to meet the saint.

And when I'm really scared, it's kind of difficult to enjoy things--like spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon having my author photo taken by my incredibly talented dear friend Nicole Dintaman. Now I absolutely loathe having my picture taken. But as you can see from the photo, it sure doesn't look like it. In fact, it looks like I'm having a good time. Which, by that time, I was because at some point during the proceedings I had a little talk with myself where I told myself that not only was this supposed to be fun, but if I could actually get out from under my crazy head, I would find that I WAS HAVING MY AUTHOR PHOTO TAKEN. FOR A BOOK THAT WOULD SOON BE IN BOOKSTORES AND LIBRARIES. AND SOME GIRL--I take that back--LOTS OF GIRLS (if you can't think positively in your own blog, where can you?) WOULD READ IT AND WHEN THEY WERE DONE THEY'D SAY "I WONDER WHAT THE AUTHOR LOOKS LIKE" AND THEY'D FLIP TO THE PICTURE AND THEN THEY'D SAY "HMM..SHE DOESN'T LOOK THAT BAD FOR A 38-YEAR-OLD WOMAN."

And I have no idea why that's all written in capitals.

In fact, I have no idea what this post is about other than to remind myself--and whoever else may be reading it--that there's always going to be another "if only," so why bother worrying about them at all in the first place?