26.
My Website Crossed an Ocean.

After getting that first click, I thought I'd gotten my wish.

But I kept checking.

Had the number changed again?

Who visited today?

For days, the number of clicks stayed at 1.

It didn't go up.

Still, I checked again.

This time, I looked at the countries.

Huh?

Country names started showing up.

The U.S.

Australia.

Canada.

Bahrain.

Ireland.

Ah.

It really was reaching far across the world.

I remembered what I'd thought when I first decided to build a website.

If I made something people needed and put it online,

wouldn't the search engine find it and connect me with people all over the world?

I wanted something I'd made to reach people far away.

And now the names of those countries I'd imagined were actually showing up on my screen.

I hadn't made any money.

People weren't flooding in.

The number of clicks was still 1.

But the website I'd made was crossing oceans.

It had reached the U.S.,

Australia,

Canada,

Bahrain,

and Ireland.

My very first website.

Built at 59.

It can take years for a website to really take off and become widely known.

But my measure of success is different.

Something I made reaching someone far away who needs it.

To me, that's already success.