I’ve left my “home” on the internet recently. For eight years I’ve been a part of IAM/BME and it’s been an enormous part of my life. More enormous than I’m willing to admit, actually. It’s been my source of entertainment and support, my employer for the majority of 2005 and it has been more important than any other website in my entire life.
I know I sound lame to those of you who don’t get it (Hi, Mom!), but this really is a huge deal for me. I had lots of friends on the site and lots of people following my life and my family’s life for years and their support is what helped me through a lot of things. The mothers I’ve met on there are better than any mothers I have in real life, and without them I wouldn’t be the mother I am today- I’m sure I’d have Ash in a crib and have a collection of many strollers, and I would likely never have heard of Attachment Parenting.
The thing that prompted leaving IAM was that the creator of the site, Shannon Larratt, was bought out by his ex wife. Faced with enormous debt from legal fees, I can only assume it was the only option for him, because I know his love for that surpassed most everything else in his life. How could it not? He’s been into body modification since a child and owner of the site for I don’t even know how long. The mid 90s? Crazy. It just didn’t feel right being there without him.
Rachel has openly shown her dislike for me, and been extremely disrespectful in an public IAM forum (and other places, but I will not mention those) to me and for that reason and others, I do not want to be on her turf.
On a side note, I think it will benefit other areas of my life to let go of something that consumes hours of my days, every day.
So, that’s that. Interestingly enough, when I posted my final entry I got an automated message that my account was now “free” for some reason. My account wasn’t due to expire until April 9, 2009, but now I guess it will never expire? Interesting, considering I didn’t do anything to deserve a free acount. I was mentioned in ModBlog once, I wrote over a dozen articles three years ago for BME/News and have submitted a few images and videos and that’s basically it. Whatever.
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One of the reasons I’ve stuck around this long is because of the mommy forums. I didn’t want to say goodbye to the women who’ve shaped me as a parent, so instead of continuing to hang out on BME, I decided to start a new site for the moms. Some of the moms I respect the most and had the most influence over me have also left (or will also leave) BME, and some of them will stay (which is totally fine). So, AP Mamas was born. I hope it will gain popularity with other moms from all over the internet because I eventually plan on adding ads and having some revenue generated. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too, because it means I get to keep up with my favorite moms.
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I lost my wallet. IT SUCKS SO MUCH ASS.
