Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person

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A note from Samantha Barry, Glamour e ditor in chief: At the very first Women of the Year Awards, in 1990, Glamour’ s legendary editor in chief Ruth Whitney took to the stage at the Rainbow Room in New York and saluted the women who lit up the year. The “doers,” as she called them, the “darers,” and the “defiers.” Women who, as that year’s special Women of the Year print issue also declared, “took charge, spoke out, risked their lives, made a difference.” Shonda is just so relatable. Take this confession about motherhood: "I don't know about you, but the mistakes and missteps I have made since becoming a mother... before kids, my confidence could not be dented. Now it's shattered on a daily basis. I don't know what I am doing." pg 63, ebook. I know, right! Nobody knows what they're doing. I take comfort in that. And you look beautiful,” he said. He reached out to pat her knee, then hastily withdrew his hand when he caught her expression. She could not stand it, these endless lies. This was no honor. She wasn’t sure what it was, but certainly not an honor. Also there's one important thing. Shonda Rhimes *knows* her privilege. She lays it all out there. She is writing not about how her life is so great, but about how her life was so great and yet she wasn't actually living it and enjoying it. All of us face some of the problems she confronts in one way or another. Even though some chapters didn't apply much to my life, I still enjoyed listening to her. (She reads the audiobook. I highly recommend it. There are a few parts of the book where she is getting ready for a speech and the book features the live readings of those speeches, which are both really really really good speeches, so that's an added bonus.) And there were parts of this book where I thought, "Yes, that's true, that's something I can change in my own life."

The thing is that the book isn't boring, and her writing style seems much like her personality: quite pleasant. She just has such a roundabout way of explaining things that makes you forget what her original topic was. Then there are times where she seems unapologetic about some messed up stuff she's done to people. I'm talking life-ruining things she's done to people personally and she just waves it off like it's something small that she will "forgive [her]self for, one day". You had to know, for example, that in spring her favorite dessert was raspberry-apricot torte and in winter it was apple strudel, but the truth was she had a taste for fruit, and for sweets, and any sweet made of fruit was her absolute favorite. One unpopular opinion Rhimes voiced through Cristina Yang on Greys was her desire to never get married. In Year of Yes, Rhimes recounts her decision to break off an engagement with a great man who loved her because she had finally accepted that marriage was not something she ever wanted. Knowing that the great man wanted what she couldn’t give him, she said ‘yes’ to love by telling him—and herself—the truth. Rhimes will be the first to tell you that money, power and accolades do not equal self-love and acceptance. Her reason behind saying ‘no’ to things that scared her is what makes her funny, witty, sometimes heartbreaking memoir incredibly human and relatable, irrespective of your stature in life. She simply didn’t know she was worthy of yes.The conversation happened during Thanksgiving about 18 months ago when Rhimes was telling Delores about all of the amazing invitations Rhimes was getting. Delores basically replied, Who cares? You’re just going to say ‘no,’ anyway.

Rhimes was not happy with her weight but her behaviors and eating habits were not reflecting that. She was saying ‘yes’ to overeating for comfort, but had not accepted or embraced what comes with being overweight. She often felt shame over her weight and judged herself harshly. He motioned with his hand. It was a regal thing, that. He’d learned it at a young age, and it came in handy. It took a moment for Adolphus to speak. When he did, his words were useless. “This is a good thing, Lottie. You shall be happy.” I will fight very, very hard for something. I'm waiting to be censored. I'm really waiting for the moment when someone tells me that if I don't change something they will censor me. I feel like that's going to be an interesting moment.

But of course Rhimes is an introvert. How else could she find all those voices in her head, both in time and creativity? But the introvert part meant that Rhimes was refusing some “best time of your life” invitations to do things where she would be feted, admired, and all that, but she could also find people to admire. She decided, for one year, to say “yes” to invites that she would ordinarily eschew. By the end of her 'year of saying yes', Rhimes had grown more courageous, shed some shyness, and learned to just open her mouth and talk. So the yeses continued. The next thing George remembered was waking up at the Royal College of Physicians. It was rather like he’d been shaken from a nap. His mother was there, along with a small handful of doctors.