This is beautiful Pene. I'm so happy you have returned to Medium and are doing so well.

I remember submitting my first piece to Illumination. I was over the moon excited when they published it, and waited with anticipation for the thousands of reads to roll in. But that never happened. I feel that with those big pubs, you do get lost in the void. But with smaller pubs, it's easier to get to know some of the frequent writers and to create a community there. I do still publish occassionally to Coffee Times and Illumination, but tend to focus on the smaller ones. Plus I self-publish occassionally just to mix it up:)