Years went by. More shows were born.
And outside of the office, I kept it up.
“I’m just a writer.”
I said that a lot. It was my folksy answer to everything. My way of making sure people knew that I didn’t think that I was doing anything special. My way of not being arrogant or snotty.
“I’m just a writer.”
Not an ounce of badassery here.
No swagger in sight.
I still couldn’t own being powerful. I tried hard to make myself smaller. As small as possible. Tried not to take up space or make too much noise. Every time I won an award or something big happened, I worked to appear a little bit sillier and sweeter and simpler in the face of my own greatness.
I just wanted everyone else to feel comfortable.
Funny thing is, no one ever asked me to do it.
It just seemed like what I was supposed to do.
Like what you do.
“I’m just a writer.”
If I am not enjoying all of this success, then see? It isn’t such a big deal. I clearly don’t think I’m special. I clearly am not loving myself.
Yeah.
I clearly was NOT loving myself. Everyone would agree about that.
I don’t know that I ever would have changed. If Delorse hadn’t said her six words and this Year of Yes hadn’t happened.
So, yes.
I can take a compliment now. Thank you. Smile.
But now I’ve got this new goal. I want it.
Badassery.
I want to feel free to swagger.
I decide, Yes, it is okay to go for it.
“It’s not bragging if you can back it up,” I whisper to myself in the shower every morning. That is my favorite Muhammad Ali quote. If you ask me, Ali invented modern-day swagger.
I launch myself on a course toward full-fledged badassery.
People around me notice the change immediately.
My three closest friends enjoy analyzing it.
Scott tells me that it is startling to observe. He tells me that I talk more. That I used to be silent. That he likes this in me.
Zola declares, “Your whole energy has changed. The way you fill a room has changed.”
Gordon tells me I look happy. And younger. He thinks my client will have more meetings.
I can certainly feel the difference. It is both terrifying and exhilarating. Mentally, I’m trying to be as cocky and immodest and brazen as I can. I’m trying to take up as much space as I need to take up. To not make myself smaller in order to make someone else feel better. I’m allowing myself to shamelessly and comfortably be the loudest voice in the room.
I’m never merely lucky.
I try hard to think I am special, to be in love with myself, to be into myself.
I strive for badassery.
Men do it all the time. Take the compliment and run. They don’t make themselves smaller. They don’t apologize for being powerful. They don’t downplay their accomplishments.
Badassery, I’m discovering, is a new level of confidence—in both yourself and those around you. I now feel like I can see so many amazing things about myself and the people around me. It’s as if before, by hiding and worrying and being unhappy, I was not looking at the people around me and seeing how truly gifted and amazing they are. There was certainly nothing in me that could have been positive and uplifting or inspiring to them. Not when I was so busy hiding and trying to be smaller and a nothing.
I’ve started to think we are like mirrors. What you are gets reflected back to you. What you see in yourself, you may see in others, and what others see in you, they may see in themselves.
That’s deep.
Or it’s stupid.
Whatever it is, it still all comes down to Wonder Woman. You stand like that, in that pose, and after a while, you start to feel like Wonder Woman and people start to look at you and SEE Wonder Woman and oddly, that makes them feel better when they are around you.
People like being around whole, healthy, happy people.
yesyesyes
I was lying in the grass the other day watching my two youngest girls, Emerson and Beckett, race around. They’re wearing these light blue gauzy Frozen superhero capes that my sister Delorse made for them. Now, I know there are no superheroes in Frozen but I have been experiencing an existential crisis about Princesses and feminism and normalizing the images my daughters see and why all the girls’ superhero underwear in the stores is pink when no superhero costumes are pink and—
Look, they’re wearing light blue gauzy Frozen superhero capes because I have told them that Anna is a junior superhero with a black sister and a gay brother—both of whom are off ruling other countries because, y’know, they have jobs. You do your mothering your way. I’ll do my mothering mine.
Emerson is making plane noises. Beckett is spinning and spinning and racing around with her chubby not-quite-two-year-old arms in the air, her curly hair flying. Then Beckett pauses. She looks at me.
“Mama,” she says, grinning. Beckett is always grinning.
“Mama, I am mmm-credible.”
Emerson pauses long enough to shout a correction.
“IN-credible! And I am MAZING!”
And then?
They swagger away.
Beckett goes back to spinning. Emerson goes back to her plane noises. Their blue gauzy capes sail in the wind.
Would that we were all two and three years old, I think.
They never apologize for their marvelousness. They do not make themselves smaller for anyone. And they too make up their own words.
That is some mazing mmcredible badassery.
I burst out laughing. I was happy.
I am happy.
yesyesyes
When it comes time to film my part on The Mindy Project, I am ready. I put on all the swagger I’ve got. I rub myself all over with badassery. And then I head down to the set. What happens next is a whirlwind. I am standing with my favorite actors in a room filled with Dartmouth paraphernalia. The experience of being both in college and inside my TV set at the same time is surreal. I’m told to say a line here and stand there. To look here and go there. Move this way and that. I try very hard to be obedient and do what I’m told. I suddenly have a renewed respect for how hard acting in front of the camera is. I also realize that as a writer I truly do not know what goes down on my soundstages. I have fun. I laugh. They are incredibly kind to me. Ike Barinholtz, who is both the head writer and an actor on the show, becomes my most favorite person ever. I get to take a photo with everyone.
I leave with a smile on my face.
I don’t think I’ll ever act again. But if this was my only experience, it was a perfect one.
When the episode airs, I do the boldest thing, so full of badassery and swagger. I sit down in the middle of my family room; I turn on my TV. And in real time, I watch The Mindy Project. I do not flinch when I see myself. I do not think, “Who does that girl think she is?”
I look myself up and down and I think, “Not bad. Actually kinda mazing and mmcredible.”
Then I put on my blue Frozen superhero cape and I do some spinning.
Well, I do the adult version of that. Which means that I open a great bottle of wine and pour myself a glass.
yesyesyes
Around the same time, my assistants give me a gift. They know that I am a political fan the way some people are football fans or baseball fans. I’ve watched C-SPAN and called it a good time. Election night is my Super Bowl and I have been in front of the TV for wall-to-wall coverage of every Inauguration Day since I was a teenager. That President Bill Clinton was on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and said something extremely nice about loving everything I did in terms of my TV work was a big deal.
I tear the paper off the beautifully wrapped gift. Inside is a T-shirt.
The T-shirt reads: Bill Clinton Loves ANYTHING I Do.
In big bold letters.
I love this T-shirt so much that I act
ually scream with glee when I see it. It’s perfect. But it is not for the faint of heart. That shirt is downright cheeky. That shirt takes courage. That shirt takes swagger. It took a lot for me to wear that shirt out of the house. Much badassery was needed.
I put it on and wore it out and about for a full day. And when anyone made a comment about it, nice, snarky or otherwise, I had only one response:
“Thank you.” Smile. Shut up.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go lock Door Number Two. I’ve gotta go, you see. It is half past Swagger O’Clock and I’m late for my applause.
A NOTE ABOUT TIME
Yes to More Year of Yes
I’m well into 2015 when I realize that the Year of Yes should have ended several months ago.
The concept of ending my Year of Yes leaves me with a hollow feeling. I walk around for a few days thinking maybe I’m coming down with something. As I get ready for bed that night, I realize that what I am coming down with is a very bad case of fear.
I am only just beginning to understand that the very act of saying yes is not just life-changing, it is lifesaving. I now see two paths—a ragged rocky one that goes up to the top of the mountain and a nice easy one that heads down under it. I can fight to make the rocky climb, get a few bruises, risk getting hurt. And I can stand on the mountaintop and breathe the rare air in the warm sun, taking in the whole world before me. Or I can take the easy route underground. There’s no sun down there. No air. But it’s warm. It’s safe. Oh hey, and there’s a big supply of shovels. But really there’s no need to work that hard. The dirt is nice and soft; if I just curl up on the ground, I’ll slowly sink deep enough to form my own grave.
The years and years of saying no were, for me, a quiet way to let go. A silent means of giving up. An easy withdrawal from the world, from light, from life.
Saying no was a way to disappear.
Saying no was my own slow form of suicide.
Which is crazy. Because I do not want to die.
As I lie in bed later, I realize that I don’t want to be done with my Year of Yes. I am a work in progress. I’ve just figured out how to have a little swagger. I can’t stop now. I don’t want to stop now. Do I have to stop now?
What began as a small challenge from my sister over chopped onions on Thanksgiving morning has become a life-or-death endeavor. I am now almost afraid to say the word no. I can no longer answer any challenge with no. That word is no longer an option for me. I know that I can’t afford to say it—the cost is much too high. The fear that I may slide back down to the bottom of that mountain, the knowledge of how easy it would be to do so, how comfortable life at the bottom of that mountain is . . . well, that is enough to keep the word no from my lips.
I can experience life or I can give up on it.
What would happen if I gave up again? Who would I become? How long would it take me to begin to climb again? Would I even have it in me to begin to climb again? Or would that be my ending?
I’m not ready for that. I can’t end. This is not the end.
This isn’t the finish line.
I’m unfinished.
And so, no matter how much I want to, I can no longer allow myself to say no. No is no longer in my vocabulary. No is a dirty word.
Time was up.
The year was done.
But I was not.
Which is how the Year of Yes went from twelve months to forever.
I can do that.
I can change the challenge if I want to.
It’s mine.
Besides, I’m not running on regular time anymore anyway.
Have you checked my clock?
I am fully synced up with Badassery Time.
Saying yes . . . saying yes is courage.
Saying yes is the sun.
Saying yes is life.
11
Yes to No, Yes to Difficult Conversations
When I was fifteen, I took my first driver’s ed class.
I was excited. I had studied the rules of the road; I had my permit neatly folded in my genuine faux leather Duran Duran wallet. I was all about getting my license because once I did, my dad was going to let me drive myself to school in the butter-colored Renault Alliance that was in our driveway. Driving meant freedom. Driving meant that one day, one day so, so soon, I could drive right out of suburbia and drive right into someplace I was meant to be. Like Paris.
(Do not interject with your “Don’t you know you’d drive into the ocean, you moron?” stuff right now. You’re ruining the moment. This was my first driving lesson. All my dreams were coming true. Let me have this one.)
That afternoon my mom dropped me off at the public school where driver’s ed was offered. I waited patiently for my instructor to arrive and when he did, I got to climb behind the wheel of a car for the very first time.
It was awesome. Totally. Totally.
Butterflies zipping around my stomach, I looked at the instructor. Patient and kind, a little balding, he was known as a nice man. He smiled at me, reassuring. I smiled back and asked what he wanted me to do.
That is pretty much the last thing I remember.
Turns out that what he wanted me to do was start the car and drive out of the parking lot, down the road, up the ramp and right out onto the freeway.
The freeway.
Much later, while he was pressing a wet paper towel to my tearstained face and explaining to me why I didn’t need to ever tell this story to my mother (my mother who makes Khaleesi and her dragons look like Winnie the Pooh and would have removed his limbs), I learned the instructor had gotten his schedule mixed up. He had mistakenly thought I was another, more experienced student.
Just before my mom arrived, I asked him what had happened.
“Did I hit anything?”
The phrase blood drained from his face is real, y’all. I saw it happen to the instructor. That’s the first time I realized that I had been scared literally out of my mind.
That is the first time my brain was wiped clean by fear.
That was the first painting removed from my wall.
And when I look back on it now, all I can think is . . .
. . . why did I let that happen?
When the driver’s ed instructor told me to turn onto the ramp that led to the freeway, why didn’t I put my foot on the brake and put the car in Park and look at him and say that one word that would have changed everything? That one word that might have kept the paintings from ever being at risk?
One. Word.
NO.
No is a powerful word. To me, it’s the single most powerful word in the English language. Said clearly, strongly and with enough frequency and force, it can alter the course of history.
Want an example?
Rosa Parks.
Let’s butterfly-wing Rosa Parks.
What if Rosa Parks doesn’t say no? What if Rosa Parks says Yeah, okay, fine, dangit, I’ll give up my seat and move to the back of this bus? The Montgomery Bus Boycott does not have its exact perfect hero—a lovely, genteel lady, kind and firm, a lady who captures the imagination and conscience of America—and maybe never happens.
My father’s people are from Alabama. As are some of my mother’s. If the bus boycott doesn’t happen, does it alter the course of their lives? Do they never meet in Chicago? Am I never born? Would I be sitting in my house writing this in Los Angeles, California, today?
Why, hello, narcissism. It has been pages and pages since we’ve seen each other. How you must have missed me.
Yes. Yes, I just suggested that Rosa Parks’s saying no on that bus is about me. Did you think I wouldn’t find a way to bring everything right back to me?
If I can’t make an entire civil rights movement about myself, well . . . what is the point of being a self-centered American? Did I tell you that you had to make Rosa Parks’s amazing sacrifice about you?
No.
No, I did not.
NO.
Most powerful word in the English
language.
See, you were trying to tell me about my ridiculous self and I just shut you down.
With NO.
Roll with me, friends.
Want another example?
When I was making the pilot for Grey’s Anatomy, we were lucky enough to work with a seriously brilliant casting director named Linda Lowy. Linda, who by the way is one of my favorite people, has a way of just knowing when an actor will be the key that fits the lock that turns the story in my brain. Linda and her partner, John, have put together every cast of every show I’ve ever done. Now we have a shorthand. I’ll call her up.
“Linda,” I’ll say, “I need a man.”
Linda, who is refined and elegant, does not say the thing my friend Gordon would say, which is “Everybody needs a man but you especially need one. Look how tightly you are wound. Get your client to a meeting now!”
Linda probes a bit to find out what kind of man I’m looking to cast and for what and then she hangs up the phone and a week or so later, she’ll be on the phone telling me that she has found me a man.
And that man will be Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Or Eric Dane. Or Jesse Williams. Or . . . I could keep going forever.
When I met Linda, I was new to TV. I was new to casting. Heck, I was new to removing my pajamas during the workday and leaving the house—up until the pilot of Grey’s Anatomy, I’d been a movie writer working at home. It was all new to me. And I was so darn happy to be in shiny TV world—wide-eyed and corn-fed and bubbly about it all. Everyone was showing me the ropes and I was just along for the ride.
There was a moment in the Grey’s casting process before we’d even laid eyes on Sandra Oh when everyone was pushing me to cast some actor as Cristina whom they all thought was great. I honestly can’t remember who the actor was but Betsy thought she was great, the studio thought she was great, everyone thought she was great. And she was great. I, too, thought she was great. But I did not want to cast her. Now I know what I did not know then—at this level, everyone is a great actor; there are no bad actors, there are just actors who do not fit your vision. This actor was just . . . not the key that fit the lock that turned the story in my brain. But at the time, I didn’t know that was the problem. At the time, I just didn’t want to cast her.
Year of Yes Page 15