Night Illusions and The Dawn of Reality

Things that look brilliant or scary at two in the morning often don’t survive in the light of day. Have you ever awoken with a cold sweat, worried about a loved one’s health or your own survival – physical, financial, or emotional? Have you ever had a plan that seemed inspired during those quiet, dead hours and became quite ordinary after the sun rose?

This weekend, I discovered that my little website, Fashion After 50, has quietly been earning a few pennies from Google Adsense over the past few months. Indeed, even this blog followed only by a few dear fellow blog-hers and friends, may have had some click-throughs.

That $7.12 seemed like a fortune. For three days, I visited my Adsense account obsessively. I watched the affiliate marketing earnings mushroom to over $8.50. Watching seven dollars turn to eight-and-a-half, nickel-by-nickel and dime-by-dime, makes watching ice form look downright exciting.

I’ve worked throughout the weekend to revise pages, practice code to wrap copy around ads, and experiment with layout. I’ve updated and added new articles. I worked until nearly 3 a.m., and I was on fire with hope that I could turn Fashion After 50 into a place visitors love for finding fashion for older women.

Then I looked at the Alexa rankings for Fashion After 50. Alexa is the Supreme Court of online website rankings, wrecking sought-after judgments about who is in the coveted top 100,000.

I know that a little bitty affiliate marketing website with less one hundred visitors was not in the top tier. I just wanted to take a peek anyway.

The average time spent at Fashion After 50 by a guest is a half-minute. Thirty seconds!

Some things look so much better when it’s dark outside – like a Christmas tree trimmed with lights and ornaments that glitter and shine. Others look worse, like a darkened alley hiding threat, violence, and decay. Day dawns. The Christmas tree is merely a dying pine that needs water. The alley is simply a bleak cement space that needs cleaning and care. Illusions, for better or for worse, melt away.