When my first viral piece hit, a story about what I called a "F**k Off Fund," a friend sent me a photo with a message: "Tell me they got your permission." It was a photo of a billboard at the Cannes film festival, part of a series imagining a better future, and it said, "In the future, every woman will have a f**k off fund."

My idea was traveling the world; I was home not sleeping well, worried about money. I had put something out in the world, for $40, that absolutely caught fire. Yet I was left in the cold.

Over the eight years that have passed since, with another million-reader viral essay but many zeros less in my bank account, I've abandoned a phrase I used to cling to: That the good you put out in the world will come back to you.

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I want to believe that, but believing it is not going so well.

"You're growing up," says a 79-year-old woman who comes to my writing group.

"And getting all bitter," I joke. I don't want getting older to mean a closing down of what I believe........

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