A couple years later, in that same polka dot number (what? I didn’t have another outfit?),  I paraded in front of a panel of editors from Glamour, hoping they’d pick me-me-me for the College Issue.  They didn’t.  

Since then, I’ve been sure on numerous occasions that there was a time and place out there where I would magically be recognized as something by whoever and raised out of mediocrity to my natural place in the sun. 

I was waiting for it again–sans polkadotted two-piece and false eyelashes–at BlogHer ’06:  I would walk in and the powers-that-be would say, “Yes, you ByJane are one of us.  Come, ascend to the throne and join us.”   

Then, at one or another of the sessions I went to or sitting by the pool watching the endless networking, the cards proferred and cards exchanged (cards it hadn’t occured to me to bring), I had an epiphany: shit, these women work hard at this.  No one discovered or annointed them. 

Today I sat with a client and told her, “You cannot live your life afraid to fail.  If you do, your greatest fear will come true and you will die not having really lived your potential.  You cannot protect yourself from disappointment and hurt and falling flat on your face.  The best you can do is know deep inside yourself that no matter what, you will be okay.”