The End Of An Era

This is a hard post to write, because it’s a hard thing to write about.  I have been dreading writing it, for the two or three days I have known that I needed to.  The fact of the matter is, I am quitting live cam work, and I have so many mixed feelings about it.

I started camming shortly after I turned eighteen, and I started on Imlive, which will always be my favorite site for cam for a million reasons.  At the time, I was working a few other jobs, and cam work was something I would do in my spare time here and there.  I just would make a little extra spending money for pretty dresses and rhinestone do-dahs.  I wasn’t at all worried about quitting my current job, and it was just a hobby for me.

A few years later, when I turned about twenty I was doing it full time, from home.  I didn’t even have my own room for it, and I would just set down a blanket in the front room with my toys out to the side, and use a crummy lap top.  I would only cam while Master Pravus was at work, and when he was on the way home I would stop and change, shower, and break down the set-up.  Eventually, I started working the night shift which was fun (you always make more money at night) and I was doing really well.

Thing is, I was also going to school for massage therapy at the time, and that’s when I started to get really sick with POTS.  I did manage to recover from it at the time, though, and I eventually went back to cam.  I would just cam whenever Master wasn’t home, and sometimes that was nights (if he had to work overnight for an upgrade or something), but mostly that was days.  I continued to be full-time on cam for a few years, up until maybe a year or two after we moved to Colorado.

Things started to get really good for my physically, after moving here.  I had already lost about thirty pounds before moving here, and I lost another ten after getting to Colorado.  I hadn’t been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos yet, and I started to get injured more and more.  They started off as fairly minor injuries that I could just shake off, but then eventually moved to more serious ones where I was advised to stay off them for six to eight weeks or longer.  During those times, I started to decline on my time on cam.

Because I was dealing with mainly injuries, I wasn’t too worried about it.  I mean, I’ve figured they would all heal and I’d be back to cam.  Every time I have started to get better, though, something else would happen.  In the past two years, my POTS has been pretty much completely out of control (as you probably already know if you read this blog), and it has been harder and harder to be online.  The sad truth is that I’m not even working on cam twenty hours per year on average right now.  There was a time when I would work fourty or more hours per week, but that time isn’t now.  Not even by a long shot.

Master and me think that this is just the best thing for me.  I’m not physically strong enough for cam anymore.  I don’t have the stamina.  I can sometimes do an hour or two here or there, but even getting the minimum three hours a month to keep my account active is just really difficult due to my Ehlers-Danlos and POTS.

The thing is, I really hate admitting that, whether to Master Pravus, or to myself (via my blog).  It feels so shitty struggle so much with my health that I can’t do the things I absolutely love doing.  I know that everyone has their own struggles, and everyone has things they want to do and can’t, but I don’t think that makes it any easier.  At least, not for me.

Master points out that this really changes nothing.  I have practically not been camming since I’ve become ill anyway, so all this does is make it official.  It’s just one less thing for me to worry about right now, because I can’t keep up and it’s just not possible at the moment.

We haven’t decided that I will never cam again, or anything like that.  It is just highly unlikely that I ever will again.  If my health completely turns around a few years from now, it’s a possibility, but it’s just not likely.

I love cam work.  I love performing, and I love showing off.  I feel like I’m losing a piece of my identity.  I’ve been doing web cam shows on and off for twelve years.  That is a long time to do something, and not feel at least a little sad to see it go.  I’m not going to stop doing adult work, but live cam shows are just out of the question for me right now.  I still have my Clips and I still plan to make new ones as my health allows, but it is still so hard losing something I love and have such passion for.

One more thing lost.