Year of Yes

by Shonda Rhimes

  My Ride or Die list before the Year of Yes was very specific. Definite. I can say the names in my sleep.

  As I write this book about the Year of Yes?

  That Ride or Die list? What does it look like?

  It is the exact same list. The exact same names. No subtractions. It’s just that not everyone on the list . . .

  . . . exists.

  Well, everyone exists.

  It’s just that not all of them are real.

  For the last eleven years, there has been one name on my Ride or Die list who only exists inside the walls of Seattle Grace Mercy West/Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. I’m not insane. I know she isn’t real.

  I just don’t care.

  Cristina Yang will always be one of my Ride or Dies.

  yesyesyes

  People think the substance of a TV show is the words I’ve put on the paper. It’s not. The substance of a show is character. And for me, characters may begin with the words I put on paper, but they are flat. Like empty balloons you pour out of a bag. The actor breathes the air into the words and suddenly what was flat is now fully three-dimensional and alive. More nuanced, funnier or sadder or more cruel or more vulnerable. I wrote and Sandra Oh breathed and what floated up was Cristina. OUR Cristina. The one Sandra and I made together.

  That is who Cristina was. A piece of my soul and a piece of Sandra’s soul wound around each other and placed on television. A human collaboration into imagination.

  This Cristina that we made was a revelation. She was never silenced. Never small. Never too insecure to make good on her natural gifts. The Cristina of our collective dreams is larger than life and sure of her genius. And, as drawn by us, while often afraid, our Cristina was able to overcome her fears through sheer strength of will. She made bold choices. She felt fearless even when she was terrified.

  It’s no wonder I leaned into Cristina, wrote her more eloquently, colored her more brightly, drew outside her lines. Let her do and think and live in ways that voiced my dreams. She did not want to get married. She had a genius that she chased. She loved her work. I gave her a strident desire to not have children because while I adore children, I wanted to watch her fight that feminist battle and win. I wanted us to watch and admire a woman who did not want the things we have all been told we are supposed to want. I wanted us to befriend a woman who was busy throwing out the fairy tale and writing her own story. And with every portrait of her I finished, I allowed myself to pay a little less attention to my own fading gallery.

  I receded into the background, where I could safely stand in Cristina’s shadow. Where I could tiptoe in the footprints Cristina was imprinting alongside Meredith into the earth as they moved confidently across the landscape.

  Cristina survived things in ways most characters wouldn’t. She performed surgery with a gun pressed to her head. And she healed by catching a giant fish and holding it in her arms. During my darkest hours, my quietest saddest moments, my loneliest times, writing Cristina Yang fortified me.

  That gun to her head and that fish in her arms? I wrote those stories for a reason. Those stories made me believe that all things were possible. Those stories were proof that I could survive anything, and Sandra’s playing those moments out, breathing life into those words, into Cristina . . . Sandra’s acting those words made my survival and resilience feel possible. Cristina Yang was the walking validation of my dreams.

  As a nerdy introverted writer with an eye twitch who could barely speak up for herself? Let me tell you, dear friends, that was magic. And that kind of magic is crazy special.

  The times Cristina and I had together were incredibly real to me. It sounds silly to say out loud. But it is true.

  I have spent more time with Meredith and Cristina than many of my actual friends. Hours and hours in editing rooms, hours in writers’ rooms, hours alone hovering over a script. When you watched TV, even by spending a full hour with Cristina once a week, you were likely spending more time with her than you spent with most people in your life.

  That relationship was real.

  That track I laid, that train?

  It was real.

  That train was speeding down those tracks, always on time, always a great ride.

  But now, it is heading for its last stop.

  We’ve almost reached the end of Cristina’s line.

  Sandra Oh is leaving the show. Soon she’ll be gone. And when she goes, Cristina will go with her.

  I am going to miss Cristina Yang.

  I do not mean Sandra Oh. Of course, I’m going to miss Sandra. But I can see Sandra, I can talk to Sandra, I know where Sandra is.

  No.

  I mean that I am going to miss Cristina Yang so much that my heart hurts.

  In the Year of Yes, this is one of the things that worries me the most. I’m not sure how I’m going to cope.

  yesyesyes

  Then something happens with one of the people on the Ride or Die list (let’s call her . . . Pam?). Pam is a friend who I would describe as a genuinely wonderful person. Strong and really funny. Witty. Kind. Laid-back. Loyal. Adventurous. But as I leap into this challenging Year of Yes and take tentative steps toward being happy, Pam becomes a wall of ice. I find myself in situations more and more often where Pam seems angrier and angrier at me, her entire personality becomes more snide. There’s a particularly ugly incident early on in the Year of Yes. Then a nasty argument happens months later. I spend a lot of time wondering if I’ve suddenly become overly sensitive or have somehow provoked this behavior. I find myself tentatively asking her about certain comments she makes or things she does that just feel plain mean to me. She runs from any conflict. I’m left baffled as to how my kind, confident friend has devolved this way. I’m concerned. But when it happens again, dramatic and passive-aggressive, I’m too far into the Yes life to put up with it. Now, all about throwing myself into difficult conversations, I confront her about what’s going on. It does not go well.

  I do what I always do when I want to talk something out, when I want to be told the unvarnished truth. I call on my inner circle Ride or Dies—Zola, Gordon and Scott. I know they’ll tell me if I am at fault, if I’ve done something wrong that I am ignoring. We gather for dinner. I tell them everything. They are quiet, listening.

  I keep waiting for one of them to jump in, to start some truth telling. To let me know what they think.

  But nothing. They’re glancing at one another. There’s a silent debate going on with their eyebrows. But I’m not included.

  “What?!” I am freaked out. The Ride or Dies never hold back. “Tell me.”

  Finally, one of them takes the plunge. “We’ve been wondering when this would happen. When you would finally notice how Pam was treating you.”

  What are they talking about?

  They tell me they have always been suspicious of Pam. To their eyes, Pam is not happy that I am happy. She’s suffering because I have changed, they have noticed. I am no longer willing to be a doormat, so Pam has no function. They very gently tell me Pam has never been the person I thought she was.

  I have no words.

  “Pam? PAM?” I am stunned. I am horrified. I am . . .

  I sit very still for a moment. I close my eyes. And I think about everything I actually know about Pam. Everything I have actually seen or heard Pam do over the years I have known her. I can think of no examples of “strong” or “funny.” She’s always on edge—not laid-back. I’ve seen her be petty and vicious and full of gossip, so “loyal” is not quite the word. But . . . she was never like that for real? Right? Right?

  I actually gasp out loud.

  Because this is the first time I begin to understand something.

  Those friends I created in my journals when I was eleven years old? The personalities and the backstories and the qualities I gave them? The stories I was spinning back then to create a world in which I had people? People who welcomed the chubby outsider with Coke-bottle-thick glasses and unfortunate braids? The characters
I created so I would have a tribe?

  I’m still doing it.

  Right now.

  I don’t have any idea who Pam really is. Because every single quality that I have used in the past to describe her? Is just . . . track I’ve laid. Campfire.

  I make stuff up for a living.

  I made Pam up.

  The role of Pam is being played by someone named Pam.

  I have spent years having a totally fulfilling, completely awesome friendship with a person who is only a stand-in for a figment of my imagination.

  I sit there. Realizing I am in a friendship in reality that mattered so little because I have created this friendship in my imagination that mattered so much to me. I don’t even think I like the real Pam.

  I don’t even think I know Pam. She was just an . . .

  “Avatar.” Scott says it. “She was an avatar.”

  Yeah.

  I am unsettled. I am even more unsettled when it happens with a second person on the list—let’s call him . . . Ken? I could go into details on Ken but . . . second verse? Same as the first. That’s the thing: there’s no need to detail what happened with Ken because basically it’s exactly the same story.

  The Ride or Dies find this topic fascinating. We can’t stop talking about it.

  “Have I been just rewriting people’s personalities to be better than the actual people? Creating them to serve whatever purpose I needed?” I gasp. “Oh my God, have I been putting character on top of it as well as food?”

  That night, I can’t sleep.

  I’d been seeing what I want to see. And now, like with the food, now that I realize it, I no longer feel okay just slapping some storytelling over the reality of the people in my life.

  It’s not that I no longer feel okay.

  I am no longer able to do it even if I wanted to.

  Now that I see it, I can’t unsee it. Everything is crystal clear. I’ve been left with Santa’s stupid elves again. And I do not like Ill-fitting and Antsy. I don’t want them in my house.

  I feel sad. I’m grieving. I realize I’m not just losing Cristina. I’m losing Pam and Ken. Three fictional friends are going. Now that I can see the Shonda behind the curtain, now that I can see the track that has been laid, I can no longer see my Pam and my Ken. I just see these people who look like them wandering around the planet. My Pam and my Ken are dead. Truly dead. I can’t get them back. The loss is painful.

  At least I have a little more time with Cristina.

  yesyesyes

  Sandra and I have a deeply personal, strangely intertwined, intimate, cold, close, distant, vibrant relationship. The only kind of relationship possible for two people as emotional as we are, as mentally curious as we are and as creative as we are when we have spent ten years together as two halves of one person. We are like family. I see her and it is like no time has passed. We cry together, we laugh together, we tell each other dark secrets. We sit in restaurants and whisper to each other in a language that can only be translated in the context of this uniquely shared experience. It has been profound.

  The fictional person Sandra and I made is beautiful and intimidating. Put Cristina up against any real person and there is no contest. No one else stands a chance. It’s unfair and awful. And not at all a way to measure a real human being.

  And yet. Who the hell cares?

  She is the goal. She is freedom.

  And that, of course, is why I created her. And I think why Sandra created her. For me, she was not just what I imagined. She was what I needed.

  I am grateful to hear so many women tell me Cristina was what they needed too. I am not alone.

  I once told someone that Cristina was one of my best friends. This person got a little upset.

  “Cristina is America’s best friend,” she lectured. “You act like you have some kind of special thing.”

  I nod patiently.

  “Yes, I know she’s America’s best friend. But I’m the one who gets to write what our best friend says and decide what she does and where she goes.”

  Wait, am I still in the pantry? I think so.

  I make stuff up for a living. Yes.

  But really, I make stuff up for living.

  To live. To keep going.

  My time with Cristina somehow saved me.

  Cristina Yang raised her sword and chopped off the heads of every demon in my path. Making me feel safe. Protecting me. She was my test run for how each demon could be slayed. She ran every course first, she tried every weapon first, she attempted every tricky maneuver first.

  She was an F.O.D. First. Only. Different.

  And I ran behind her, getting all of her second chances.

  She did that for me.

  I now know that the demons out there are some version of me. I am aware that I am the only one chasing me, running me down, nipping at my heels. Trying to bite my head off. It’s time to be a better friend to myself.

  I’m not worried about my demons though. Cristina’s getting off the train but she’s leaving me her sword. I will chop the demon heads myself now.

  I’m not afraid.

  Cristina Yang made me brave.

  Ride or Die.

  I love a fictional character and I don’t care who knows it.

  She had been not only Meredith’s person but also my own.

  I laid this track.

  I made this stuff up for living.

  Here comes the train.

  Let’s dance it out. But first, we need to find a song . . .

  yesyesyes

  I can finally describe why the other music feels wrong.

  “I want it to soar,” I say to Joe. “I want us to feel like when they are dancing, they are flying. I want the same wonder and joy they feel in surgery to be felt in this dance. I want to capture ten years of extraordinary friendship, of true caring, of tribal warriors, of Ride or Dies. I want to capture the glory of Cristina Yang and everything she means to herself and everything she means to Meredith and everything she means to us. In one song, in one dance, in one scene.”

  Joe sits quietly a long beat. Then he says:

  “In one song. In one dance. In one scene.”

  I nod. Joe nods back.

  We sit silently for a really long time.

  We say it at almost the same time.

  “Season One.”

  And the music battle is over. No one wins. Everyone wins. We need to find a song from Season One. And it has to be a song that captures the feelings of joy and newness of two interns just getting to know surgery and each other.

  The result is perfect.

  Tegan and Sara’s anthemic song “Where Does the Good Go.” A song we played early on in Season One way back when we all thought we’d do a few episodes, have a little fun and part ways. Now we are all intertwined. I’ve held Joe’s babies. My daughter Harper learned to walk in these editing room halls. The song evokes longing and nostalgia and joy and love and it’s not too slow or too fast. It soars.

  Joe and I find the perfect spot to transition their dancing into slow motion. We want to jump out of real time and then we swing overhead just as Tegan and Sara hit the chorus. We fiddle with it. It is never exactly right, it is never perfect. And yet it is flawless. It is everything we want it to be.

  And then because we cannot let this moment pass too quickly, because we do not want to part these friends before we must, Joe and I do something we rarely ever do in the editing room:

  We open up a full minute of uninterrupted screen time to watch Cristina and Meredith express themselves in the best way these two brilliant women can without scalpels in their hands—we watch them dance it out.

  I find myself tearing up the first time I see it. These dark and twisty sisters have gone the same distance I have. They are also no longer dark or twisty.

  This dance is joyful. This dance is triumphant.

  This dance is a celebration of what you can become.

  It is everything I wanted it to be.

  They are
flying.

  yesyesyes

  I feel a lot of warmth for Pam and Ken. The fictional versions. I don’t resent them. I’m grateful for them. They were great friends while I needed them. And whether or not any of the friendship was actually true, it was true for me. As much as Cristina was true for me. As much as the stories I wrote in my notebooks in middle school were true for me. As much as the pantry was true for me. They provided me with something necessary at the time. I felt bolstered by their friendship. By their loyalty. By the idea that I had these amazing friends, these members of my tribe, these gladiators at my back. Riding and Dying for me. Like Cristina, they made me braver, faster, stronger.

  I make stuff up for living.

  For a time, Pam and Ken had been what I needed for living. Cristina too. But I don’t need them anymore.

  The upside of culling people from my life is that my focus has become very clear. My vision has become razor sharp. I now work to see people, not as I’d rewrite them, but as they have written themselves. I see them for who they are. And for who I am with them. Because it’s not merely about surrounding myself with people who treat me well. It’s also about surrounding myself with people whose self-worth, self-respect and values inspire me to elevate my own behavior. People who require that I stay truthful and kind and not totally crazy. Not eating every single thing in sight. Not hiding. Not saying no. I want Ride or Dies who make me want to be a better person.

  I no longer have to make them up. I am surrounded by them.

  My friends are the real deal.

  The tribe I have now, the real live flesh-and-blood Ride or Die tribe that has been here with me all along, is the real deal. My world has been sifted down to just the finest individuals. My sisters. My Scott, my Gordon, my Zola. My Christopher. A very small handful of others. They cheer me on. They hold my hand. They shove me forward when I want to hide. They were telling me to say Yes all along.

  They do not make me braver, faster, stronger. They tell me I already am braver, faster, stronger. They do not chase my demons and chop off their heads for me. They tell me I am capable of slaying my own demons. They do not gladiate for me. They tell me I can gladiate for myself.