Year of Yes Read online

  Run.

  That seems like a much better plan than going out in public with every nerve ending in my body screaming.

  This is who I am.

  Silent.

  Quiet.

  Interior.

  More comfortable with books than new situations.

  Content to live within my imagination.

  I’ve lived inside my head since I was a kid. My earliest memories are of sitting on the floor of the kitchen pantry. I stayed there for hours in the darkness and warmth, playing with a kingdom I created out of the canned goods.

  I was not an unhappy kid. Because I was the baby in a family of eight, at any given moment, someone was available to read to me, applaud whatever story I had come up with or let me listen in on their teenage secrets. The end to every sibling argument over the extra cookie or the last slice of cake was always an egalitarian sigh: “Give it to the baby.”

  I was loved, I was a star, I was the Blue Ivy of my world. I was not an unhappy kid.

  I was just an unusual kid.

  Lucky for me, my parents held the unusual in high regard. And so when I wanted to play with the cans in the pantry for hours on end, my mother didn’t tell me to stop messing around with the food and go somewhere else to play. Instead, she declared it a sign of creativity, closed the pantry door and let me be.

  You have her to thank for my love of long-form serialized drama.

  The world I created inside the small closet filled with canned goods and cereal was serious; these days I would describe it as a winter-is-coming-where-are-my-dragons kind of solo play date, but this was not HBO. This was the suburbs in the 1970s. We didn’t need reality TV because TV was real. Nixon was going down. As Watergate played out on the tiny black and white set my mother had dragged into the kitchen and balanced on a chair just outside the pantry doors, my three-year-old imagination made a world of its own. The big cans of yams ruled over the peas and green beans while the tiny citizens of Tomato Paste Land planned a revolution designed to overthrow the government. There were hearings and failed assassination attempts and resignations. Every once in a while, my mom would open the pantry door, flooding my world with light. She’d politely tell me she needed vegetables for dinner. The canned judiciary would sentence a can of corn to death for treason and I’d deliver the guilty party into the hands of the executioner.

  Man, that pantry was fun.

  You see the problem? Did you read the problem?

  Man, that pantry was fun.

  That just came out of my mouth. I actually said it aloud WHILE I typed it. And I said it without any irony. I said it with a big dorky wistful grin on my face.

  I had a wonderful childhood, but I lived so deep in my imagination that I was happier and more at home in that pantry with the canned goods than I ever was with people. I felt safer in the pantry. Freer in that pantry. True when I was three years old.

  And somehow even more true at forty-three.

  As I sit on my sofa staring into the Christmas lights, I realize that I would still be partying in my pantry if I thought I could get away with it. If I didn’t have children who needed me to be in the world. I fight the instinct every day. Which is why I now have a garden for vegetables.

  If they had asked, I would have said no.

  I would have said no.

  Because I always say no.

  And that’s when the grenade explodes.

  Suddenly it’s Thanksgiving and I’m back in that kitchen, covered in spit-up, watching my sister chop those onions. And I understand her now.

  You never say yes to anything.

  I don’t just understand her—I believe her. I hear her. And I know. She is right.

  BOOM.

  Grenade.

  When the dust settles and everything is clear, I am left with one thought rattling through my head.

  I’m miserable.

  That makes me put down my wineglass. Am I drunk? Am I kidding me? Did I just think that?

  Honestly, I’m a little indignant with myself. I’m embarrassed to even be having that thought. I’m ashamed, if you really wanna know. I’m bathed in shame.

  I’m miserable?

  I’m still a little ashamed to be telling you that right now.

  I’m miserable.

  Who in the hell do I think I am?

  A whiner. That’s who. A great big old whiner person.

  You know who gets to be miserable? Malala. Because someone shot her in the face. You know who else? The Chibok schoolgirls. Because the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped them from school for forced marriage (which is just like regular marriage except exactly the opposite and full of rape) and no one cares anymore. You know who else? Anne Frank. Because she and about six million other Jewish people were murdered by Nazis. And? Mother Teresa. Because everyone else was too lazy to treat the lepers and so she had to do it.

  It’s pretty shameful of me to sit around saying I’m miserable when there are no bullets in my face and no one’s kidnapped me or killed me or left me alone to treat all the lepers.

  I grew up in a family where hard work was not optional. My parents worked very hard to raise and educate six—count ’em, six—children. And at some point, it dawned on me that the reason I had such a great childhood and never wanted for anything was because my parents worked extremely hard so we could have crazy things like food and gas and clothes and tuition. In high school, I got a job scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins and I have had a job ever since. So I am very aware that these days I live in a rarefied world. I know that I am extremely fortunate. I know that I have incredible children, a fantastic family, great friends, a spectacular job, a lovely home and all my arms, legs, fingers, toes and organs intact. I know I don’t have the right to complain. Not about my life in comparison to anyone else’s life. Unless that anyone is Beyoncé.

  Damn, my life is so bad next to Beyoncé’s life. So is yours. Everyone’s life is so bad next to hers. If you know otherwise, if you know that Beyoncé’s life is terrible for some reason, please, do not come up to me on the street and correct me. I need to believe that Beyoncé’s life is perfect. It keeps me going.

  But except for Beyoncé, I know how fortunate I am. I have no delusions that I am suffering in any real, true way. And so it does embarrass me to say it. I mean, you don’t hear Malala complaining.

  But you know why you don’t hear Malala complaining?

  Because Malala and her spiritual buddies Mother Teresa and Anne Frank are all MUCH better people than I am. Obviously. Because I’m clearly a giant whining baby and I suck. Because in that predawn, staring at my Christmas lights, even though I am ashamed, I cannot avoid it. The realization feels like plunging into an icy lake:

  I am miserable.

  Admitting this takes my breath away. I feel as though I am revealing new information to myself. Learning a secret I’ve been keeping from myself.

  I am miserable.

  Truly, deeply unhappy.

  In December 2013, I was incredibly successful. I had two hugely popular television shows on the air—Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal—and had just retired a third, Private Practice. My company, Shondaland, was in the midst of working with writer Peter Nowalk to develop a show that would soon become our newest hit, How to Get Away with Murder. So yeah, from the outside, I think everything probably looked great. And as long as I was writing, as long as my fingers were on the keyboard, as long as I was at Seattle Grace or Pope & Associates, as long as I was laying track and feeling the hum in my brain . . . I was fine. I was happy.

  I know that I certainly tried to project the idea that my life was perfect. And I tried not to think about it too hard.

  I went to work. I worked a lot. I came home. I spent time with my kids. I spent time with the guy I was dating. I slept.

  That’s it.

  In public, I smiled. A lot. I did a HUGE amount of smiling. And I did what I called “Athlete Talk.” Athlete Talk is what happens on all of those interviews that take place right after an
y pro sports event you see on TV. A boxing match or an NBA game. Serena Williams smashing some record in tennis. Olympic swimming.

  Good Athlete Talk is when the athlete goes before the press and keeps a smile on her face, voice bland and pleasant as she deftly fields one reporter’s question after the other—never once saying anything of controversy or substance. My favorite Athlete Talker of all time is Michael Jordan. He’d stand there after scoring 5,635 points in one game, sweat pouring down his head, towering over some tiny reporter:

  “I’m just happy to be playing the game of basketball,” he’d say, smiling.

  But, Michael, how do you feel about famine, politics, the WNBA, cartoons, Hanes underwear, tacos, anything?

  “I’m thrilled to do what I can for the ball club. The Bulls are home to me,” he’d chuckle pleasantly. And then he’d amble away. Presumably to the locker room, where he stopped being a Good Athlete Talker and started being a PERSON.

  I was a Good Athlete Talker that year.

  “I am just happy to be working for ABC.”

  “It’s not my job to question my time slot. My job is to make the shows.”

  “I’m proud to be a part of the ABC team.”

  “I’m thrilled to do what I can for the network. ABC is home to me.”

  “I’m just happy to be playing the game of basketba—I mean, writing for TV.”

  And it was true. I was happy and proud and thrilled. I did like ABC. (I still do. Hello, ABC!) Just as I’m sure Michael truly liked the Bulls. But that Athlete Talk didn’t have anything to do with liking my job.

  It had to do with staying inside the pantry.

  Keeping that door shut. Hearing Nixon on the outside. Only reaching one arm out into the sliver of light to hand out peas or corn or yams. Giving the people what they wanted. Then closing that door again.

  Any actual parts of me, anything real, anything human, anything honest, I kept to myself. I was a very good girl. I did what everyone needed me to do.

  And at the end of every day, as a reward, I poured myself a glass of red wine.

  Red wine was joy in Shondaland.

  yesyesyes

  I used to be a really happy person. A vibrant person. I may have been shy and introverted but I had a rowdy, fun crowd of friends, some of whom I’d known since college and, with them around me, I was dance-on-the-tables Shonda, drive-to-New-Orleans-at-a-moment’s-notice Shonda, adventurous-and-always-up-for-anything Shonda. Where did she go?

  I had no real way to account for my unhappiness. For once, the storyteller had nothing to tell. I had no idea why I was unhappy, no specific moment or reason to point to. I just knew it was true.

  Whatever that spark is that makes each one of us alive and unique . . . mine had gone. Stolen like the paintings on the wall. The flickering flame responsible for lighting me up from the inside, making me glow, keeping me warm . . . my candle had been blown out. I was shut down. I was tired. I was afraid. Small. Quiet.

  The lives of my characters had become unimaginably huge. People all over the world knew Meredith and Olivia. At the same time, my life had so drained of color and excitement that I could barely see it.

  Why?

  You never say yes to anything.

  Oh yeah. That.

  I put down the glass of wine and lay on the sofa. And really thought about those six words.

  You never say yes to anything.

  Maybe it was time to start saying yes.

  Maybe.

  3

  Umm, Yes . . . ?

  January 13 is my birthday.

  Yippee.

  I love birthdays.

  Because I love birthday parties.

  When I found out there was something called a Puppy Party? Where they bring PUPPIES for kids to hold and cuddle for an hour and it’s not puppy abuse, it’s good for the puppies because they are training the puppies to be service dogs? I almost lost my mind jumping up and down. Puppies! A party with puppies! COME ON! That exists?

  I like puppy parties and face painters and candy buffets and that guy with a guitar singing silly songs and ice cream and even some (very few, non-scary) clowns. And if you are past the age where helium balloons and face painting get you so excited and/or terrified that there’s a danger you will pee your pants, I like dance parties and costume parties and dinner parties and seventies disco parties. I’m a firm believer that parties make everything better.

  You’d think a shy person would hate birthday parties. I love them. Small parties and big parties. I don’t necessarily love to attend them but I love the magic of them. I love the idea of them. I love to hug the corners of the walls and watch the good times. I love being with friends.

  But today? This birthday?

  I get out of the shower and lean really close to the bathroom mirror. So close I can see all my pores. Then I glare at my face.

  “So you made it out of a uterus a long time ago. Big deal,” I whisper. “So did everybody else on the planet. What else you got?”

  Then I think about going back to bed.

  Really. I usually love my birthday. I do. But today, I am nervous. Edgy. I feel prickly and strange. Like everyone is looking at me. I’m unnerved. There’s a pit of something odd in my stomach.

  It’s the same feeling I used to have waking up with a hangover back in my twenties. I’d lie in bed, waiting for the bed to stop spinning. Wondering WHY I ever thought seven cocktails was a good idea. Feeling that same pit of oddness in my belly. In my gut. And I’d wait, every synapse on patrol—we’re on high alert, soldier, this is not a drill—for the wave of memory to wash over me. To spill over my brain in a cascade of shame as I remembered whatever crazy thing it was I’d done the night before.

  I slept with WHO?

  I cried WHERE?

  I sang WHAT song?

  This birthday morning, that’s what it feels like. A hangover morning. Except without all the bloaty puffy fun of the cocktails.

  I promised myself that I would do WHAT?

  Downstairs, wearing a birthday hat made by the kids, I eat cake for breakfast. I consume almost the entire cake by myself. And I do not feel bad about it. The cake is everything to me. I want to have this cake’s babies. I savor each bite. I am like a death row inmate having her last meal.

  In a text to one of my closest friends that day, I write the following:

  “Am going to say yes to anything and everything that scares me. For a whole year. Or until I get scared to death and you have to bury me. Ugh.”

  My friend writes back:

  “Holy crap.”

  I am not enthusiastic. But I am determined. My logic is wildly simple. It goes like this:

  • Saying no has gotten me here.

  • Here sucks.

  • Saying yes might be my way to someplace better.

  • If not a way to someplace better, at least to someplace different.

  I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want a choice. Once I saw the unhappiness, felt the unhappiness, recognized and named it . . . well, just knowing about it made me itchy. Like itchy on the inside of my brain. Continuing to say no was not going to get me anywhere at all. And standing still was no longer an option. The itchy was too much. Besides, I am not a person who can see a problem and not solve it.

  Before you start to praise me (and frankly, I don’t see how you possibly could at this point—but just in case), I want to be clear: I know that I said that I am not a person who can see a problem and not solve it. But I don’t mean that in a “heroic Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on the bus” way. I mean it in a sad, control-freak, “the toast crusts must be cut off to the same exact millimeter measurement every time” way. Meaning I’m not easygoing about these things.

  That’s not how I’m built.

  That’s not how any type A, obsessive, workaholic control freak is built.

  Obviously.

  I’m a doer.

  I do.

  So. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. When I say I
’m going to do something, I really do it. I throw myself into it and I do. I do my ass off. I do right up to the finish line. No matter what.

  No.

  Matter.

  What.

  This is all made worse by the fact that I’m competitive. Not normal-people competitive. Not friendly competitive. Scary-psychotic competitive. Never hand me a volleyball. Don’t ask me to play a fun hand of cards. I have never heard of a casual round of Scrabble. We started a bake-off at Grey’s Anatomy and I had to remove myself from the competition. Something about it maybe being kind of a little bit like workplace harassment when I forced my writing staff to bake in competition against one another. And maybe it was also not so good when I performed a touchdown dance during the medal ceremony while yelling, “IN YOUR FACE, BITCHES!!!!” at whoever placed behind me.

  Like I said, I’m competitive.

  I’m not invited to anyone’s game night.

  Look. I’m a person who goes all in.

  I lean in. I lean all the way in. I lean so far in that sometimes I’m lying down.

  Hell, I don’t own Thursday nights for nothing.

  I tell you this so that you understand how big this yes-for-a-year thing was for me. This Year of Yes thing was gigantic. The Year of Yes promise was a commitment. A binding contract between me and my greatest competitor and judge—me. Backing out would mean months of self-flagellation and plummeting self-esteem. I would talk about me like a dog. Things would get ugly.

  Also, honestly?

  I was just . . . desperate.

  Something had to change. It had to. Because this couldn’t be it.

  Having it all.

  This could not possibly be what having it all was supposed to feel like. Could it? Because if it was, if this is what I spent all this time and energy working so hard for, if this was what the promised land looked like, was what success felt like, was what I sacrificed for . . .

  I didn’t even want to consider it. So I wouldn’t. I would not think about that. Instead, I would look ahead, take a deep breath and just . . . believe. Believe that the road continued. Believe that there was more.