At A Glance
Author	Dawn
Contact	Dawn@bme.anon
IAM	Dawn
When	A year ago

On June 26, 2002, almost one year ago today, I became a member of IAM. I think almost from the first moment I was addicted to the site. I posted pictures to my page and started to make friends immediately.

One of the first people to IM me was modifiedgirl. We quickly realized that we had a lot in common. She is in her late 20's and I am in my early 30's. We both have daughter's close in age. The more I got to know her the more I liked her. She was my first modded female friend who is also a parent. She understood so much of my thinking and my parenting ways.

When I joined IAM I was dating my tattoo artist. We broke up shortly after I joined. modifiedgirl talked me through my break up and invited me to come visit her in California. After briefly thinking about the offer I decided it would be fun to come out in October for my daughter's 12th birthday.

During this time I was also talking to another person on IAM who I knew of before I had even joined. tinkerbell is the ex-girlfriend and son's mother of my tattoo artist boyfriend. I tried really hard to befriend her because I wanted to have her know that I was a good person and she could trust her son around me. As it turns out, it was never me that she distrusted, but that is a different story.

When I broke up with my tattoo artist boyfriend tinkerbell took me to my second BME BBQ at glider's house, but the first one that I felt like I knew people and I really belonged at. We also went with my niece, Eash and her boyfriend keldon. tinkerbell and I had so much fun at the event and even ended up getting a little crazy and ending up on the BME BBQ DVD.

That was at the beginning of September 2002. After the BBQ many people knew me and started to IM me and hit my page. One very important person I got to know was Badur. He became one of my best friends on IAM and gave me lots of lovely, relaxing weekends in Toronto just chilling out.

In October my daughter Darcee and I took off for California for a week of fun in the sun. It was a week of pure happiness and enjoyment. I knew as soon as I laid eyes on modifiedgirl that she was a wonderful person who was going to change my life.

And she did. Right before I left to go back to Michigan she asked me to move to California. I thought about it for a few days and told her yes. I had nothing holding me back in Michigan. Yes, I had a career, but that was about it. I figured that I would have no problem finding another job when I got to California.

On Sunday December 29th 2002 modifiedgirl arrived in Michigan by Greyhound Bus to help me pack up and move to California. I had quit my job a few days before and sold my house to keldon and Eash.

We celebrated the new year in Tweed at glider's and of course I got in a bit of trouble, but modifiedgirl has since forgiven me. The New Year's BBQ in Tweed was awesome, and sad at the same time. I knew it was going to be my last BBQ in Toronto/ Tweed for a very long time. Seeing certain people there, like martini, badur and many others broke my heart.

As it turned out we decided to have a pull/ Windsor trip for my birthday on January 11 and I got one more chance to say goodbye to a lot of people. But I still cried.

On January 20 we packed up a U-Haul and headed out to California. We arrived on January 22 tired, but no worse for the wear. And my new life was about to begin.

The first few months were filled with getting to know my surroundings, getting my daughter enrolled and adjusted to school and many other things like that. I didn't really have time to work and I was enjoying the time off. modifiedgirl took me lots of places and to meet lots of her friends, IAM and non IAM.

Then on April 4th, 2003 something happened to me that I never thought would happen again. I had talked a few times on line to modifiedgirl's friend seqziman, but I never thought we really clicked and didn't keep up an online friendship. On that night a bunch of us were getting together to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And he decided to come along. And as soon as I saw him my heart stopped. And I knew he was the rest of my life.

We have been together since then. We live two hours apart and don't get to see each other as much as we would like, but it doesn't weaken our love for each other.

So IAM gave me the love of my life and a best friend that I can't live without. It gave me the strength to change my life.

The other day seqziman and I were talking about people who get BME logo tattoos and their reasons for it. We decided that after we are married we are going to get BME tattoos for no other reason than that is were we met the love of our life.