What Makes Me...Cam.

For my next few posts (unless something remarkable and exciting happens...yeah right) I'm going to explain to everyone what makes me who I am. The places, people and things I love and some of the ones I love less.

I figure I'll start with what makes me "Cam". As you might have guessed (and a lot of you already knew all too well), my real name (real meaning the name on my birth certificate) is not Cam. Nor is it Cameron or Camryn or any variation thereof. What that name on my birth certificate is I will not be sharing here for various reasons, but the most glaring of those reasons is that I'm comfortable with being called Cam. After all, it's what some of my dearest friends have called me for years.

On my wedding anniversary some 2 and a half-ish years ago, my husband introduced me to a whole new world. A world known as Azeroth. Yes, that's right, we started to play World of Warcraft.

I tried out a few characters but ultimately settled on a human priestess because I could make her look like me!!! (Thunder Thighs and all!!!)

I promptly named her...Camelot.

For the next year, this was my identity. As the mother of a then-2 year old and a newborn, I didn't get out much in the real world, but I was free to roam the wilderness and cities of Azeroth at my leisure. I met interesting people from all over the world, some of whom became my lifelong friends and others who I haven't heard from since. The one thing these people all had in common is that, to them, I was "Cam".

After about a year of playing Camelot, I got bored. I decided it was time to try something completely new, but no other games appealed to me and I still wasn't able to get out and socialize due to a very strict budget and lack of friends in this town. Instead, I decided to play the other side of the field for a while.

I rolled Horde.

Venit was my character's (a blood elf warlock) name, but as I am by nature a person that needs to reach out to people, I had become quite well-known on our realm forums, everyone STILL called me Cam. It had stuck. So much so that Val (and no, that's not HIS real name either) sometimes would slip up and call me Cam at home.

Now I don't play Venit anymore, I went back to the priest class as well as a "Cam" name (Camdyn) but remained horde as a blood elf. But it's become rather comfortable, this identity. I think I'll keep it. It gives me a warm feeling inside when I get a phone call from a "WoW-friend" or talk to them on voice chat and hear them call me Cam.

Some people make fun of gamers. They stereotype us as either fat forty year old virgins who live in their mother's basement with a pile of twinkie wrappers next to our computers, (I'm NOT fat, I'm not even thirty, I have my own apartment and it's Rice Krispy Square wrappers THANK YOU VERY MUCH!) or acne-prone socially retarded teenagers who talk with a lisp because of their braces. This is not the case. The different people who play this game would astound you. I have met stay at home moms and successful physicians both in this world we call Warcraft. It made a social network for me that I couldn't have brought myself to make without it. The friends that I have made in this game have encouraged me to better myself, to never settle for less, and to test my limitations.

So to know who I am, you must know that even though the gloss has worn off this game for me, the people keep me going back and the world known as "Azeroth" is in my life to stay for as long as Blizzard Entertainment lets me play in it.