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

Content Warning: This section discusses substance use. 

The impetus for the book occurs on the morning of Thanksgiving 2013: Rhimes’s sister, Delorse, prepares the holiday meal while Rhimes mostly chats, telling Delorse of several opportunities she has been offered. When Delorse asks which ones Rhimes plans to attend. Rhimes replies that, as a working single mother of three, she will not accept any of them. Delorse mutters, “You never say ‘yes’ to anything” (11), and points out that Rhimes has an extensive support system who can assist with her children.

Rhimes does not know that these events will be life-changing.

Rhimes forgets the six words her sister spoke until she arrives at the Kennedy Center Honors event six weeks later and is told she will be seated in a box with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Though nervous, Rhimes enjoys the event. She realizes afterward that if she’d been asked prior to the event whether she would like to sit with the Obamas, she would have said no. Rhimes contemplates why and realizes that she would have been scared: Unfamiliar experiences scare her to the point of avoidance. As she considers this, Rhimes admits to herself that she is not truly happy.