And so, without asking, without telling—it’s all don’t ask, don’t tell up in there—the storyteller is called off the bench in my brain and steps up to the plate. And—hell yes, I’m going all sports metaphor on you—hits a home run on the first pitch.
The storyteller solves the problem. My inner liar cleans it all up. We sit down around the campfire, my storyteller and I, and we spin tales about weddings on ranches in Montana and we talk about how marriage is good once you’re in it and how perfectly matched we are and how of course this is going to be great and how we are imprinted on each other like two ducks.
I lay some track.
Oh, the track I lay.
For a train that is . . .
. . . that’s the thing.
There is no train.
There’s no crew waiting to build a set. There’s no budget that has to be kept. No actors to film.
I am laying track in a ghost town for a ghost train.
I am laying track on a route to nowhere for a train that ain’t coming.
Only I don’t know it yet. I still think I hear that train whistle in the distance. It’ll be here any minute now . . .
And so I stay enthusiastic.
Marriage!! How great is that?!
(breathe, breathe)
. . . two ducks imprinted on each other . . .
One foot in front of the other. I’m not going to make it.
Us together for the rest of our lives.
One foot in front of the other. I’m not going to make it.
. . . two ducks imprinted on each other . . .
He is so happy. I am so happy. Just . . .
One foot in front of the other. I’m not going to make it.
I think of Delorse, thirty-five years into her marriage with Jeff. I think of my parents, a lifetime into theirs. I imagine me two months into my marriage and I get a headache.
Let’s wait, I say. To tell our families and friends. Until after life with my newest baby settles down. Until after our families have met. Until after Christmas.
Until after, until after, until after . . .
One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.
I’m not going to make it.
Right now, remember, we are pre–Year of Yes. So I do what I always did when I am stressed. I started eating.
I eat. And eat. And eat. I put food on top of food on top of food. Like I said, I am the fattest I have ever been. He doesn’t mind. He loves me. His love transcends the superficial. He’s an incredible human being.
The more incredible he is, the more food I shove in my face hole.
People keep telling me that I am glowing.
Because I am in love, they say!
Because I am fat and sweaty, I say!
Everyone is so incredibly happy that I am with him. They love him. They can’t get enough of loving him.
Side note: the praise I received for having a guy everyone hoped I would marry eclipsed any and all praise or congratulations or excitement that accompanied the births of my children and any of my many career accomplishments. It was stunning. The presence of a man at my side had people as apoplectic with joy as those old videos of people seeing Michael Jackson perform live. Where they are screaming and crying.
Okay, not screaming and crying.
But seriously.
They were almost screaming and crying.
A dude. Versus three children; an entire night of television; a Peabody Award; a Golden Globe; lifetime achievement awards from the DGA, the WGA and GLAAD; fourteen NAACP Image Awards; three AFI Awards; a Harvard medal; and being inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame—to name just a few of my many accomplishments.
A dude.
He’s a great guy. One of the best. Clooney wishes.
But since I am not Dr. Frankenstein and thus had no hand in his creation, I would prefer not to be celebrated for his presence.
It’s oogey.
Like my street value went up because a guy wanted me.
You know what’s a bigger taboo than being fat?
Not wanting to get married.
Remind me to start a revolution about that later.
yesyesyes
As the Year of Yes gets under way, I begin to unwind my mind from the story that we are two ducks, that we are imprinted. Because we are not. I knew we are not. Because I was lying awake at night. Panicking.
He would move in here? With me? And the kids? Live here? With me?
I would have to talk to him all the time. See him every single day. Be aware of him. Hand him even more of my energy and focus. It is incredibly hard to fit him in now. And I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean that as truth. All of my free time, I spend with the kids and then my friends and my family. There’s a certain amount of time alone I need just to have the brain space to write, to have what I call mental pantry time. I already give up some time from each to see him.
He kindly offers, “I can just hang out here while you write. We don’t have to talk. I just want to be with you.”
You and I are close friends now, reader. So you know how I feel about writing.
Writing is the hum. Writing is laying track. Writing is the high.
Now imagine that hum, that high, that track to be laid is behind a door. And that door is five miles away. Those five miles are just . . . writing crap and doodling and trying to have an idea and surfing the internet and hoping like hell not to get so distracted that you give up. Worse? Those five miles are lined with brownies and cupcakes and episodes of Game of Thrones and Idris Elba waiting to talk to only you and really good novels to read.
Every time I sit down to write, I have to mentally run those five miles past all of that to get to that door. It’s a long, hard five-mile run. Sometimes I am almost dead by the time I reach the door.
That’s why I have to keep doing it.
The more often I run the five miles, the fitter I become. And the fitter I become, the easier the run begins to feel and the less fresh and exciting all that stuff on the side of the road seems. I mean, how long has it been there? More important, as I get fitter, I can run faster. And the faster I can run, the faster I can get to that door.
The faster you can too, writers out there.
When you sit down to write every day, it becomes easier and easier to tap into that creative space inside your mind.
The faster I can get to that door, the quicker I can get to the good stuff.
Behind that door is the good stuff.
So when I reach the door and open it . . . that’s when my creativity clicks in and that special spot in my brain starts working and I go from exertion to exultation and suddenly I can write forever and ever and ever and eve—
And then someone opens the door and asks me if I want coffee or water and I am FIVE MILES AWAY all over again. I grit my teeth and try to smile and say No thank you, see, I have coffee AND water both already, right here. And then I start running that five miles all over.
That happens roughly thirty-five times a day at the office.
Someone turns off my hum. It’s always for a good reason. But I still have to sit on my hands to avoid the murder charges currently happening in an alternate universe.
Imagine that happening at home, gentle reader. With someone who loves you and isn’t trying to bother you.
I don’t have to imagine it. I know it all too well.
I have children. Any working mother knows. But it’s one thing if they shut off my hum. I would willingly grit my teeth and smile for them all day. I would stand in front of a bus for them. I would fight a lion for them. They are my kids.
I try to imagine if it weren’t my kids. I try to imagine willingly adding him to the mix.
Why would I do that to myself? To him?
It makes me feel trapped. Caged. I know, I know. This makes me seem like a monster. Someone loves you so much that they want to be with you, Shonda! What is your problem? I just don’t get you!
>
You know who gets me? Who feels me on this topic?
Cristina Yang.
I gave her my ambivalence about marriage. I gave her my passion for work. I gave her my love for something greater than any romance, something that draws her focus more than any guy—a creative genius floating forever out of reach that she will never stop trying to capture.
Her true love? Her soul mate? Her MFEO?
Surgery.
Why marry the guy when you can have the Chocolate Factory?
He loves me. I love him. Still. I can’t imagine giving him any more attention. I try. I just can’t imagine it.
I finally speak up. And I say that I want to push back not just a wedding but any talk of a wedding.
For how long?
For one whole year.
That does not go over well. But he accepts it. Because he truly is a fantastic, kind and understanding person. I’m the one still on edge. Because I know this isn’t it. I know I’m postponing the real conversation.
In this Year of Yes, this Yes is the hardest Yes.
Say yes, I tell myself. Say yes to telling your truth.
I talk to my Ride or Dies. They are solemn. Concerned. But supportive. My tribe is behind me.
So I do it. I say it. To him. To his face. For the first time.
“I do not want to get married. I may never want to get married. I am pretty positive that I absolutely will never want to get married. Well. Maybe when Beckett is out of college. Or when I’m seventy-five.”
He’s stunned. And rightly so.
He wants to know why.
I talk for a long time. About the traditional reasons for marriage no longer existing for an independent woman. About how marriage is a piece of paper, a binding contract used to protect property and assets, and a lot of times it is rightly used to protect women’s rights if they have been raising children and find themselves left without an income. Marriage is a financial partnership. Marriage has nothing to do with love. Love is a choice we can make every day. Romantic love as a path to marriage is a fairly new concept, I tell him. And it is a foolish one.
I tell him I don’t believe in divorce. Ever.
I tell him that I have seen a great, fantastic joining of both marriage and romantic love up close and personal with my parents and because of that, I know what marriage plus sustained love looks like and how much work it takes.
I take a deep breath and tell him my first love is writing. Writing and I are MFEO. I tell him that my well of energy is only so deep and that I happily pour that energy into writing and raising my daughters, and so I would never be pouring the energy into a devoted marriage in the way I know from our conversations he imagines a marriage would be. I tell him that he would resent me and grow to hate me if we got married and I did not make him a priority above my work. And I have no ability to downgrade my creativity in my soul. I have no desire to do so either.
I say, let’s be more bohemian about this. Let’s just let love be love and let go of all the definitions and the expectations. Let’s stop thinking about marriage as the finish line, let’s redefine what a life together is for ourselves. Let’s be free, let’s not be bound by rules.
I want to say all of this.
I don’t say all of this.
I say some of it. I don’t get all of it out. Because he looks so disappointed. And confused.
He says, “But . . . but . . . I thought you were much more traditional than this.”
And that is when I realize: I am the train.
I am the train.
I laid the tracks.
For the train that is me.
I am the story rumbling down those tracks and out of sight. I am the falsehood. I made me up. I laid those tracks and built those sets and filmed myself and I whistled right into the station. And boy, was that train a good ride. I give good story. I created me into whatever it was he was looking for.
And that creation has little in common with the person I see every day in the mirror.
I’m old. And I like to lie.
Who knew I was lying to both of us?
The role of Shonda is being played by . . . Shonda.
yesyesyes
I’d like to be able to tell you that I staggered out of that relationship, devastated and broken.
I didn’t.
I know I told you not to come up into my book and judge me. But here, right here on this page? You are free to judge. I won’t cop an attitude and toss you out of my book. You can judge.
See. The thing about this big momentous breakthrough I had that crystallized who I am and forever changed my life? This breakthrough only happened to me. I had a breakthrough. Someone else got broken. So while I was busy having epiphanies, a horrible thing was happening to a perfectly wonderful human being. I may have been growing and changing but I was also taking someone’s dream and plan for the future and setting it on fire. That the price of my joy was another person’s pain is something I’ll forgive myself for. One day.
But then, on that day? Right when it ended, I couldn’t feel any of that. All I could feel was . . . overwhelming relief. Joy.
So like I said, you are free to judge. You go on ahead and you do some judging. You’ll want to. Because I gotta tell you, I didn’t just walk out of that relationship . . .
I danced.
I danced it out. Happier than I’d been in a long time.
yesyesyes
When I see Delorse, I’m beaming. Glowing. Lighter. Happy.
“Why are you so cheerful?” she asks.
“We broke up because I don’t ever want to get married!”
Her brow furrows. I am quite literally shaking my groove thing around the family room. My mother calls this “airing out your behind,” and when she says that, we are supposed to stop. But my mother is not here, so I bust out my best eighties dance moves: the Running Man, the Cabbage Patch . . .
Delorse stares at me. My daughter Emerson is on her lap. She stares at me too. Delorse waves a hand in my direction, capturing all of my moves in one gesture.
“This. Is this some Year of Yes thing happening?”
“Yeah!” And I tell her what happened as I dance.
“So,” she says slowly when I’m done, “you are this happy because you said yes to not getting married.”
I stop airing out my behind. I sit down. I’m quiet for a long moment.
“No. I think that I am this happy because I realized that I really don’t want the fairy tale. I mean, I had it. I mean, I was there. I already have a great career, great kids, wonderful home, terrific life. And now, here was the great guy. I had it, I was going to have it all. I’m supposed to want it all. It’s supposed to complete me. Getting the great guy is the series finale. Part of me secretly thought that maybe I was just being obstinate—that if I just did what I was supposed to do, if I got married, I would end up being happier. And everyone was thrilled for me. It would have been so simple. The wedding was right there. The amazing guy was right there. The happy was right there. And I didn’t want it.”
And I moonwalk out of the room. Delorse stares after me. I know she doesn’t understand. I’ll explain it to her later. Right now, I have to dance.
This yes is a big one for me.
You ready?
My happy ending is not the same as your happy ending. And yours is not the same as my sister Delorse’s or my sister Sandie’s or Zola’s or Betsy’s or Gordon’s or Scott’s or Jenny McCarthy’s. Everyone has their own version.
We all spend our lives kicking the crap out of ourselves for not being this way or that way, not having this thing or that thing, not being like this person or that person.
For not living up to some standard we think applies across the board to all of us.
We all spend our lives trying to follow the same path, live by the same rules.
I think we believe that happiness lies in following the same list of rules.
In being more like everyone else.
That? Is wrong
.
There is no list of rules.
There is one rule.
The rule is: there are no rules.
Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be.
Being traditional is not traditional anymore.
It’s funny that we still think of it that way.
Normalize your lives, people.
You don’t want a baby? Don’t have one.
I don’t want to get married? I won’t.
You want to live alone? Enjoy it.
You want to love someone? Love someone.
Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t ever feel less than.
When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it.
No fairy tales.
Be your own narrator.
And go for a happy ending.
One foot in front of the other.
You will make it.
15
Yes to Beautiful
I am standing on an apple box.
The sturdy wooden crate traditionally used to hold fruit is serving as my platform, making me tall enough so that the light hits my face at the right angle. The light hitting my face at the right angle, I’ve been told, is very important.
This isn’t my area of expertise. So when the camera assistant points to the apple box, I obediently step up on it. I stand on the apple box and I don’t move. I wait. Someone will tell me what to do next, right?
Behind me hangs a large piece of dark fabric, a simple and elegant backdrop. In front of me there are thick snakes of electrical cable, high lights with color filters, a deep sea of crew members forming an intense obstacle course. A couple of sturdy guys with Southern accents work to place the camera in a specific location, moving it an inch or two in search of precision according to some unseen plan.
Deep in the back of the room, I can see well-dressed men and women hovering around the corners of the room, staying out of the way of equipment as they talk to one another in low voices. These are the suits—the army of studio publicists and personal publicists and managers and magazine executives required to make sure the day runs smoothly and on schedule. I catch a glimpse of Chris—Chris #1, my publicist—back there.
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