Why Me

Why do I blog? Vince and Rob started me on it. I resisted for a while but I eventually saw it as a good way to keep people informed about Jill happenings. Now that I've been doing it for a while I have come to realize blogging is a way for me to both escape and confront reality.

There has always been A Jill Story, the medium for sharing it has only recently changed. When I was 17/18 I made being a story girl part of my identity. I had apparently entertaining guy stories that my best friend enjoyed listening to. She also shared these stories with her mom and dubbed the adventures "Jilly Stories". Whenever we got together she'd ask, "Any new Jilly stories?" I could not for the life of me figure out why she (and others today even) wanted to live vicariously through me. Still, I tried to always have new material for her. I don't advocate living your life for the entertainment of others, but it may have given me a little extra motivation to take action when I could have done nothing. The result was a list of treasured stories with titles such as Rob Security Guard, Cancer Boy, Customer Service Kelly, Jet Setter Stephen, Canoe Boy, The Client, My Other Favourite Bus Driver, and The Summer of Terry.

Now don't get the wrong idea here, these guys are not "notches in my lipstick case" (Pat Benetar reference). The stories are mostly innocent and don't go very far. The point is, they were adventures starring me. I will always think of those guys as favourite characters I had the privilege of being able to interact with for a time (should you be intrigued by any of these stories I'll happily share them with you, if only for the excuse to put on my nostalgic dreamy face. Sigh.).

Today, I have a different and much more varied audience and my purpose for sharing has changed slightly. I actually blog as a way of playing "Let's Pretend". One of my favourite TV programs, if you haven't figured it out already, is Sex & The City. The show revolves around Sarah Jessica Parker's character, Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie is a columnist for The New York Times. Her column, Sex & The City is based on her life experiences as a 30-something single/dating woman in New York City. She narrates the show by sharing her column with you. A Jill Story is my place to pretend that I am Carrie Bradshaw, living my life and sharing it with my loyal public. My focus isn't quite the same; I just try to offer some useful perspective on life. As I go through my day I often find myself forming my next blog in my head. The details don't always make it to this page, but the exercise helps me to remember to make each day an adventure, a story worth telling.

While it is fun to pretend that you have as much impact and as many loyal readers as a New York Times columnist, I also mentioned that I use my blog to confront reality. Well, maybe not confront so much as simply acknowledge it. I think that my favourite posts are the ones where I share embarrassing stories and admit to my imperfections. My mistakes are part of who I am. I do dumb things. I say dumb things; I am an odd girl really. At my worst, I am over-dramatic, neurotic, naive, scared, scarred and human. I don't discount that there are many wonderful things about me. It is these things that probably draw you here to read about my latest adventure. But if you are going to love me, admire my character, or insist upon living vicariously through me, you'll have to take the whole me. For those of you who can do that, I whole heartily thank you. You mean the world to me.

I hope that some day I will read A Jill Story and see progress in my character the way you would see the heroine of a novel (or dramatic TV show) grow and change. My life got really exciting for me about two years ago (nearly three now). I hope that it will always be blogworthy. The question isn't really, why do I blog? It is, why do I have this yearning to tell a story? As far as I can tell right now, I fear that if I lose the desire to share my story, it means that I have really stopped living, and that would be the saddest Jill Story of all.