But you only get so many do-overs in this life, so many chances to, if not change your past, alter your future.

I am never happy when I finish a book. I always start feeling good, and then I get to about Page 75 and start losing momentum - and I kind of pull it together at the end, but by then I think it's just all over. It's become almost a running joke among my agent and my editor - I always say that, so they don't take me seriously anymore.

I hoped this was true. Even if it wasn‟t, all I could do was hand over what I could, with the hope of something in return. But of course, this was easier said than done.

Everyone laughed, and just like that, the conversation shifted, jumping to another topic. It was fast and furious, the talking, the emotions, the back-and-forth and forth-and-back. I realized that if I tried to focus on it too much, I got overwhelmed. So I just decided to relax into it, bumpy and crazy as it might be, and try for once to just go along for the ride.

"It's gonna be okay," I said. It was the first time in a long time that I believed it. "It will."

Sometimes. It was a good escape. Until, you know, it wasn‟t.

Not everything's perfect, especially in the beginning. And its all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it... that's when you get into trouble