The stakes got even higher for Scandal. If the first network drama with an African-American leading lady in thirty-seven years didn’t find an audience, who knows how long it would take for another to come along? Failure meant two generations of actresses might have to wait for another chance to be seen as more than a sidekick.
I am what I have come to call an F.O.D.—a First. Only. Different. We are a very select club, but there are more of us out there than you’d think. We know one another on sight. We all have that same weary look in our eyes. The one that wishes people would stop thinking it remarkable that we can be great at what we do while black, while Asian, while a woman, while Latino, while gay, while a paraplegic, while deaf. But when you are an F.O.D., you are saddled with that burden of extra responsibility—whether you want it or not.
When I made my first television show, I did something I felt was perfectly normal: in the twenty-first century, I made the world of the show look the way the world looks. I filled it with people of all hues, genders, backgrounds and sexual orientations. And then I did the most obvious thing possible: I wrote all of them as if they were . . . people. People of color live three-dimensional lives, have love stories and are not funny sidekicks, clichés or criminals. Women are the heroes, the villains, the badasses, the big dogs. This, I was told over and over, was trailblazing and brave.
I hope you have your left eyebrow raised too, dear reader. Because—girl, please. But I was doing a thing that the suits had said could not be done on TV. And America was proving them wrong by watching. We were literally changing the face of television. I was not about to make a mistake now. You don’t get second chances.
Not when you’re an F.O.D.
Second chances are for future generations. That is what you are building when you are an F.O.D. Second chances for the ones who come behind you.
As Papa Pope told his daughter Olivia: “You have to be twice as good to get half as much . . .”
I didn’t want half. I wanted it all. And so I worked four times as hard.
I never wanted to have to look at myself in the mirror and say that I didn’t try as hard as I could to make these shows work. That I didn’t give 100 percent to leave a legacy for my daughters and for all the young women of color out there who wondered what was possible. It irritated me to my core that we live in an era of ignorance great enough that it was still necessary for me to be a role model, but that didn’t change the fact that I was one.
I got into the habit of working as hard as I could all the time. My life revolved around work. And outside of work, I took the path of least resistance. I didn’t have the energy for difficult conversations or arguments. So I smiled and let people get away with treating me however they wanted. And that only made me yearn to be back in the office. Where I was in charge. Where I was the boss. Where people were too respectful or kind or happy or afraid to treat me like crap.
Because I worked so much, I found myself constantly tired. In the early days of Grey’s, I said no to so many invitations that people actually stopped asking me. I began to have a reputation as someone who did not socialize with work people outside of work. In reality, I didn’t socialize with anyone outside of work. My larger circle of friends also didn’t understand; there were whispers I’d abandoned them for a glamorous Hollywood life filled with parties and famous friends. I would have laughed at this, but I was just too tired. I’d get an angry email about a missed birthday and would be asleep face-first on my keyboard before I could craft an apologetic response. Finally I just . . . gave up. My friends self-selected down to a smaller core group. I stayed home more. And spent more time working. More time alone. More time hiding.
Losing yourself does not happen all at once. Losing yourself happens one no at a time. No to going out tonight. No to catching up with that old college roommate. No to attending that party. No to going on a vacation. No to making a new friend. Losing yourself happens one pound at a time.
The more I worked, the more stressed I was. The more stressed I was, the more I ate.
I knew things were getting out of hand. As I started to feel more uncomfortable. As I started to feel more tired. As the jeans got tighter and tighter. When I went up size after size. When I needed the largest-size clothing in the plus-size shop.
And yet.
I was ambivalent about so much of it. The feminist in me didn’t want to have the discussion with myself. I resented the need to talk about weight. It felt as though I was judging myself on how I looked. It felt shallow. It felt misogynistic.
It felt . . . traitorous to care.
My body is just the container I carry my brain around in.
I started saying that back in college when the frat guys would make dirty comments about my boobs. And I used this tone. A tone that said, God, how dumb are you?
But I had to say it to them a lot. To make them know that I should be invisible to them. To make them stop looking.
And now I was saying it to myself a lot. To make me invisible to myself.
My body is just the container I carry my brain around in.
I said it while I ate cartons of ice cream.
I said it while I ate whole pizzas.
I said it while I enjoyed mac and cheese with bacon in it. You heard me. Bacon in it. I ate anything that had bacon in it. Or was wrapped in bacon. One meat wrapped in another meat clearly proved the universe was unfolding exactly as it should.
My body is just the container full of bacon that I carry my brain around in.
And maybe it is. Maybe it is just the container I carry my brain around in.
But so is a car. And if the car is broken down and busted, my brain isn’t going anywhere. Same goes for my container.
I felt . . . old. Not “I’m old and I like to lie” old.
Old.
“Stop participating in the world” old.
“Sit in a chair and watch the world go by” old.
What an extraordinary waste of a life.
But what a tasty human veal . . .
I think no one is noticing. I think no one sees. I think the fact that I have doubled in size may not be that noticeable. Because I don’t really notice it. It’s happened so gradually. I am invisible to myself. I think I am maybe invisible to everyone.
I am not.
People tried to be tactfully helpful. People said things to me like, “Endorphins make you feel good.”
So does chocolate cake, fool.
Betsy Beers, whom I love and adore and would honestly slay a dragon for (or at least kill a spider for), once said, “You just have to train yourself to love salads.”
I did not speak to her for several days. Who trains themselves to love salads?
What kind of sicko trains themselves to love salads?! I could also train myself to love the taste of gravel. Or cow crap. But why? I don’t hate myself.
I hired a trainer. And then I promptly fired him because he said, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels!”
He clichéd at me.
He clichéd at me in a perky, condescending tone.
“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels!”
Who says that to a fat woman? Seriously? WHO SAYS THAT? Because clearly, a) you have never had barbecue ribs, and b) shut your stupid mouth.
Being tasty veal is not something I’m happy about. Even veal does not want to be veal. Veal wants to be rescued by PETA. I start to long to be rescued as well.
I get on a plane to New York. I’m a fancy TV writer. So I have a first-class ticket, a big first-class comfy seat. I settle in, shoes off, pull out my book, grab the seat belt and—
Well, it’s gotta be broken.
It’s BROKEN, right?
I HAVE A BROKEN SEAT BELT.
Right? RIGHT?
I do not have a broken seat belt.
I am literally too fat for a first-class airplane seat belt. I am Violet Beauregarde blowing up like a giant blueberry in Willy Wonka’s factory. I’m the thing that ate Gilbert’s grape. Poke me with a
pin and I am going to pop like a balloon.
I freaking wish.
At least it would mean I wouldn’t be a passenger on this plane.
The humiliation is starting to make me sweat. A sweaty Shonda is not a pretty Shonda. A sweaty Shonda is a short leap away from a hideous troll-like Shonda.
I decide that I have two choices: I can ask the flight attendant for the seat belt extender, or I can go without a seat belt, thus ensuring that karma will crash the plane and I will plummet to my death, taking hundreds of innocent seat-belt-wearing, law-abiding people with me.
You know me pretty well by now, gentle reader. What do you think I do?
Do you think I act like an adult, like a grown-ass woman who ate herself here? Do I hit that button to summon the flight attendant? Do I speak to the flight attendant in a clear and calm voice, carefully enunciating each word so everyone in the first-class cabin is sure to hear what the sweaty girl in seat 5A has to say?
“Excuse me, but it has just come to my attention that I am now way too fat for this big giant first-class airplane seat belt. May I have the very same seat belt extender that I used to smirk to myself about while thinking superior thoughts? MAY? I? PLEASE?”
Really? Me?
Please.
No.
You know me by now. You know I don’t do that.
I choose death.
I choose death by fat and by karma and because Catholicism don’t quit, I bravely choose to deal with the hellfire and damnation that will follow forever after as punishment for taking the rest of the plane’s passengers down with me.
I toss my sweater over my lap to hide the lack of seat belt, give an apologetic smile to the man in the suit across the aisle, shut my eyes tight and wait for the painful death that is to come.
I don’t die.
I’m not dead.
Hot damn, I’m a narcissist—did I seriously expect karma to take down a whole planeload of people because my ass got too fat and my ego got too big to admit it?
I’m alive.
But I immediately start to imagine myself dead. Imagine myself being embalmed. Imagine myself being worked on in a funeral home. Some lady putting makeup on my dead fat face. I think of the extra-large coffin. The enormous tent my sisters will have to buy to give to the funeral director to dress me in.
It sounds funny.
Not to me.
Nothing about this is funny to me.
I have two toddlers and a twelve-year-old.
What the hell have I been doing to myself?
I find myself wondering, “How do I yes this one?”
The Year of Yes, I realize, has become a snowball rolling down a hill. Each yes rolls into the next into the next and the snowball is growing and growing and growing. Every yes changes something in me. Every yes is a bit more transformative. Every yes sparks some new phase of evolution.
So what is the Yes here?
What do I say Yes to in order to get healthy?
At first, I don’t know. A few days later, I’m lying in bed back at home, in the midst of a rousing session of veal practice, watching old Doctor Who reruns, eating chocolate-chip cookies and enjoying the raft that is my mattress when it hits me: I like this.
The bed.
The warm chocolate-chip cookies.
The veal practice.
The warm chocolate-chip cookies.
The TV.
The warm chocolate-chip cookies.
I like it. No. I love it. I’m enjoying myself. This is fun. It’s easy, it’s relaxing, it requires very little effort. Plus did I mention warm chocolate-chip cookies? This is a good time for me. It’s a picnic. It’s a party. It’s a par-tay. This is how I roll . . .
Wait. Oh. Oh.
And holy crap. There it is.
I’ve already been saying yes.
I have been saying yes to being fat.
Which is WHY I’m now so fat. I’m not a failure; I’m successfully fat. I didn’t let go of the wheel; I just turned the car down the fat road.
I have been saying yes to fatness.
And you know what? Why the hell wouldn’t I? Being fat has been easier for me. It has worked for me. I wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t.
Being fat made me happy.
On Private Practice, Naomi has the following discussion with Addison about putting food on top of feelings to make everything better:
NAOMI:
I take all these feelings . . . the rage, the exhaustion, the sexual frustration . . . the desire to run Sam down with my car, the fact that my child now thinks her father is the good parent . . . I just take it all and I shove it down as far as it’ll go. And then I just . . . put some food on top of it.
ADDISON:
Maybe . . . you should talk to Sam instead of inhaling four thousand calories a day.
NAOMI:
You know what? You find your magic your way, I’ll find my magic mine.
I was finding my magic my way.
My own special formula involved red wine. And buttered popcorn. And warm chocolate cake. And anything that was fried. And five-cheese macaroni and cheese. And veal practice.
Did I tell you what veal practice is? Oh! Veal practice involved me lying very still on the sofa trying as hard as I could to mimic the life of a veal.
While eating veal.
I wish I were kidding.
It. Was. Magic.
The food created a nice topcoat. It helped to smooth down the ragged bits. Sealed off the parts of me that were broken. It filled in all the holes. Covered up the cracks. Yep, I just put some food on top of any and everything that bothered me. The food just spackled right on in there.
And presto! Underneath the food, everything inside me was smooth and cold and numb.
I was dead inside and that was good.
Magic.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that food doesn’t work. Anyone who tells you that food doesn’t work is either stupid or a liar or has never had food before. You can tell them I said so. It works. Putting food on top of it works. If food did not work, if it didn’t work its slutty, gluttonous, more-is-more magic, everyone in America would be Angelina Jolie thin. No one would drive-thru. No one would sprinkles or pinkberry or any of it.
No.
Food does work. Food feels so good when you put it on top of all the stuff you don’t want to deal with or know how to deal with. It even works on stuff you don’t even recognize as worthy of dealing with.
Food is magic. It makes you feel better. It numbs you. Beautiful magical food deadens your soul just enough so you can’t think too hard about anything other than cake or sleep. Putting food on top of it casts a spell to make the feelings go away. You don’t have to face yourself or think or be anything other than your brain—no body necessary.
Food works.
There’s the rub.
There’s the trouble.
It works.
I would be eating a whole bucket of fried chicken right this very minute if I thought I could still fit into these pants afterward.
If I was still okay with being dead inside.
The thing is? I’m not.
I’m not okay with being dead inside at all.
Being numb no longer suits me. It’s ill-fitting and I’m antsy about it. I find myself snapping back at people more. Or writing little Bailey-esque rants into my emails when someone’s upset me. I don’t want to be numb. I want to tell someone who has upset me to take their attitude and shove it right up their—
Well, let’s just say that I am starting to prefer it to shoving some food in my mouth on top of my hurt feelings.
What I have come to call The Airplane Seat Belt Incident of 2014 (because I am a woman who will give anything a title) has made putting food on top of it no longer an option.
After The Airplane Seat Belt Incident of 2014, I no longer can deal with being numb.
Now numb feels creepy to me.
Now numb feels not just dead but rotting.
&n
bsp; The food doesn’t spackle anymore—it suffocates.
And the moment I have this big beautiful breakthrough that changes my life?
I am pissed off.
The universe has ruined the comfort of my brownies and my wine. By revealing them for what they are. Because now I know the truth about them.
I feel like someone’s just told the four-year-old me the truth about Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve. While I’m sitting by the fireplace. Waiting to hear the jingle bells on the roof.
Now all I’m left with are Santa’s dumb elves, Ill-fitting and Antsy. Ill-fitting and Antsy are no substitute for big fat Santa Claus. Now I have to deal with this.
Now I have to say no to fatness.
Damn it. I want to kick Ill-fitting and Antsy’s asses.
Losing weight is not going to be easy. Not once in my life have I ever lost more than fifteen pounds unless it involved a serious stomach flu or self-starvation to such an extent that doctors were called.
The sheer insanity of how much work it’s going to be for me to push through the pain and the terror of just beginning is daunting.
Once a close friend, Jan (whose name has been changed to protect the innocent), and I checked into a fancy health spa for a week. Cal-a-Vie is a beautiful, luxurious but intense place. So intense that they tell you right up front that there is no need to bring anything—after they take your car keys, you are issued gray sweats to wear each day. Just like in the military. Or in prison. Each morning at the crack of dawn, you are driven up a mountain in a terrifying and painful death run. After that, there are three more hours of workouts. Around noon, as you lie on the ground feeling muscles you never knew you had spasm, you whisper elaborate escape plans for getting over the wall with your fellow prisoners. But just when you’ve summoned the energy to make a run for it, you are retrieved by your “guide” and taken to the spa. Where, for the rest of the day, you are pampered with the most luxurious treatments known to humanity. The essence of roses that were grown and nourished with the tears of tiny baby kittens bathes your feet and you forget all about your plans to escape. Until the next morning when it starts all over again.
Year of Yes Page 11