Karen, I've waited to reply to your comment because it has struck me very deeply. Thank you for the kind words.

Mostly I had to laugh--I've done writing for $25 and $50 and actually, I was happy with that. But I have to draw the line somewhere and it turns out that line is at $4.89--which is about what most of my pieces make.

This is part of my beef with Medium also. It's absolutely impossible to find information about the site's membership, demographics, earnings, etc. That seems lame, considering they know every last little thing about us. Would it really hurt them to let some of that info out? I went looking because I'm dead curious about demographics of readers and writers at this site, because honestly some of the relationship/dating/marriage articles seem absolutely scary conventional/old school. But I am not a tech bro and therefore do not have access to as much of everyone's personal info. Trying to find hard numbers and facts about Medium reminded me of trying to answer questions about vaccinations for people when I worked at the public library--everything was "proprietary" and locked down hard by companies making them.

I wish you the best of luck, Karen, you know that. I'll still be around reading or visit me at citizenreader.com and keep me updated on how you're doing, okay?

p.s. I love your writing too so I do hope whatever you go back to doing allows you to use your many writing skills.