Question I have to decide this weekend: do I waste cash on renewing the website package, or do I set a static author page on the domain name and pull the privacy plug on the blog?The answer is leaning towards door #2. I'm trying to talk myself out of the idea, but I'm having a lot of trouble convincing myself there's a point.Oh, I'll keep writing. both here and elsewhere. I will draft, edit, polish, and perfect my prose and publish it. I will offer it for sale to strangers.  I have more momentum lately than in months. It's been a long crawl out of the rocky wilderness of Spouseman's Cancer Recovery Adventure, but I have plans and  I will make all the things.But the part where I share that journey online  in this shielded social space and elsewhere? That doesn't have to be part of the picture.  And honestly, spilling my heart's blood into this chasm of silence  is beginning to bug me. A lot.When the only people who offer any affirmation on my posts are total strangers, when my blog has many followers but gets a bare handful of reads, and even those few readers rarely bother to click a button; when I get zero social media extension from most of the followers whose writing I respect-- all those things send me a bitter scream of a message.The message is: "This doesn't rate.  We'll save our efforts for others."My instinctive response to that message will always be to walk out the door and take my precious, glorious, unappreciated words somewhere quiet and full of solitude.Because this shit does rate and I will defend myself from the roaring winds of Disdain however I must. I had hopes for this being a way to connect and share, I really did, but the numbers just aren't there. Evidently I do not improve with repeated exposure.Writing is never complete without readers, but I refuse to break off bits of my soul and throw them into an abyss forever.  I have a comfy nest on a shaky perch of just-enough-confidence. I have things I burn to say, stories I yearn to tell--The upside? I won't waste time on formatting, checking spelling and so on. It's much easier to spill my private thoughts in public and ignore  being ignored when I don't have to clean up punctuation and wonder if anyone's paying attention when I wear no pants. Metaphorically speaking.Being ignored in a crowd of people all exchanging compliments is painful. Being all alone in silence is more peaceful.Damn. And here I started this post trying to talk myself OUT of retreating. I am open to counterarguments.But I don't expect any, because my mama didn't raise no fools.