After decades of "no," I said "yes" to everything for one year. Here's what I learned.
"The apology cookies are in the mail."
Editor’s note: This is the promised personal essay as I sat down to try to come to terms with what did I actually learn from saying “yes” to everything for one year? It is long-ish. Grab a warm beverage and see if maybe you can learn something to apply to your own life or perhaps embark on your own “year of bravery.” As I said previously, I’m taking a bit of a break from weekly publishing of this newsletter.
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”
Over and over, all through 2023, I asked myself that—usually in my head but sometimes whispered out loud. Usually while looking at myself in the mirror but sometimes on my back staring at the ceiling from wherever I stood when the anxiety finally became too heavy to carry around upright.
“Why, self, are you doing this to your own self?”
There was never an answer other than, “So, you’ve become a person who talks out loud to herself, huh? Cool. Cool. I’m sure that’s not a sign of anything important slipping out of your already tenuous grasp up there in your ole thinking-sponge.”
When I decided that in 2023 I would say “yes” to everything, it was a huge shift from my mode of operating over the previous 17 years of writing about Pittsburgh. Achingly shy and full of as-yet-unrealized shame about my hearing disability, being anonymous from the start had served two purposes — it let me drag local jagoffs to the Mon without fear, and it let me stay comfortably hidden. These are my words; I give you them, but I can never give you me.
As an anonymous writer, interviews were out of the question unless over email, which again was me giving of my words, but never myself. When I finally felt forced to strip my anonymity away in 2009, my picture ended up on the front page of CNN.com for an entire day after I was fired from my nonprofit job. I cannot explain to you what a nightmare that was for me. Not the firing; I expected that. But my identity? My picture? My … ME? Out there? I shook all day. Just constant trembling. Writing this now fills me with emotions and they are not good ones. Perhaps I still haven’t reckoned with that day yet. Honestly, I don’t think I need to. (My therapist is probably reading this and grabbing a pen all, “My doctorate says you thought wrong.”)
From 2009 until 2019, I stayed as quiet as I could outside of my written words. I had an intense fear that I’d wear out my welcome should I become a “public” figure, or that if I allowed myself to become something more, it would go to my head and I’d become beholden to feeding an ego. Equally intense was the fear that I’d be a disappointment to those who had been reading the musings of fun, witty “PittGirl,” only to discover she was a shy, boring mom with hearing aids and the fashion sense of Liz Lemon eating her night cheese.
But I also knew I had something valuable—a platform to do good, and it was in those attempts to do good that I allowed more access to myself. I still eschewed interviews, but if I posted a picture of myself, it was almost always because I was sharing Make Room for Kids news. In-person video interviews were even more rare. I think there have been four and I have, to this day, not watched a single one. Up until 2019, there were only a handful of pictures to be found of me on the web. My desire to not seem like I was becoming “full of myself” even led to me declining an interview with Pittsburgh City Paper years ago, despite the fact that I’d said yes to at least a photoshoot for one of their Best Of issues. That meant this amazing photo by the talented Brian Kaldorf (now a successful product photographer) was never printed:
The good news was that I had my husband to be my crutch. I didn’t need to be brave because I could use him as my ears in social settings or in day-to-day adulting situations. To hear the boarding information being called at the airports. To tell me when I didn’t hear what someone said to me. To help me pass for hearing because the shame in my disability had been growing and growing. And growing. And suffocating me. But my marriage fell apart in 2019 and suddenly, just like that, I was on my own after 20 years. Once I was forced to toss it away, the crutch I didn’t even realize was there now regularly screamed its absence at me.
I felt a slow, small spark deep inside telling me that despite being in my mid-forties and divorced, things were finally about to really start for me. I believed it, but often that hopefulness was tamped down by fear. Of what? Who the hell knows. Of everything. Success. Failure. Parenting. The future. Hell, even the mail.
But the thing with life is it goes on more often than not. And me putting one foot in front of the other throughout the pandemic led to my debut novel being published at the old-for-a-debut-age of 49. (Kiddies, your plus 1 math correct; I will be 50 this year. Right now, the men in my DMs are like, “Oh. Whoops. She’s too old for me.” You are 100 percent correct, my guy.)
I love my book. I deeply, deeply love it. I knew I loved it the moment I typed the last words, even though I was to spend the next two years scared it was a bad book. I loved the characters I created, what they went through, how they battled their own personal traumas, how they became stronger, how they laughed and how they made me laugh. I knew that since my book would be published by an indie publisher, it was going to be on me to get it into as many hands as possible if I wanted to share it with those who needed this kind of story in their lives. And doing that meant that for one year, I was going to have to start saying “yes.” To nearly. every. damn. thing.
Every photoshoot. Every interview. Every speech. Every reading. Every library invite. Every bookclub invite except maybe those that gave off a bit of a one-person-serial-killer-bookclub-that-serves-chianti vibe.
When I was asked to do my first-ever essay-reading at City of Asylum, I said yes, even though that invitation would have usually been declined.
When the University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehab Sciences asked me to speak at their graduation ceremony, I said yes, even though speaking in front of over 1,000 people would have meant an immediate “hell no, and don’t ever email me again unless it’s to ask my mailing address for the apology cookies you want to send me.”
When the Heinz History Center approached about hosting a book launch event, everything in my body screamed, “Oh my god, no. Never. You think I’m going to ask people to pay actual dollars to come hear me talk about me?” I said yes.
Every dinner invite that wasn’t a date request (because I just wasn’t there yet). Every coffee. Every Zoom. Yes. Yes. Immediate yes. And my brain was like, “No. No. Instant and emphatic hell no. Who are you and what are you doing to us?!”
When TEDxPittsburgh asked me to give a TED Talk, I ignored the screaming in my head and replied with an immediate yes. Yes, I will do a TED Talk for you and yes, I’m totally sure my thinking-sponge has a little room left up there to memorize a 12-minute speech even though I often forget what I wanted to Google in the time it takes me to close one app and open another. And my brain said, “Girl. You greatly overestimate our old-ass abilities. You should start Googling ‘brain food’ now, because we are STARVING UP HERE. Sugar ain’t cutting it, so stop making people mail you apology cookies.”
What all those yeses meant for me was a consistently heightened baseline level of anxiety with higher peaks as events drew near. And boy, my calendar was a MESS of events, whereas prior to 2023, it was the beautifully quiet calendar maintained only by the shyest of socially awkward introvert writers.
Some weeks meant two bookclub visits, the least anxiety-inducing events. The weeks leading up to library talks were paralyzing. At least once a day I’d have to fall into my couch and try to get a 15-minute nap just so I didn’t have to fight with the always-victorious anxiety for a bit. At least when I slept, it had no choice but to sit quietly in the corner and wait for me to wake up. When I felt the pressure build up, I’d remind myself how lucky I was for every opportunity that came my way, opportunities other writers would love to have. Through it all, I remained grateful. For kind and gracious Pittsburgh. For friends who held me up time and again.
Now, it’s 2024. My year of bravery is over and my general anxiety level has returned to one more in-line with where it should be—pretty low most days, with the expected spikes when life gets stupid, as it sometimes does.
I was in a unique position—one that not many find themselves. I went from hiding myself away to sharing myself every chance I could get. A complete 180 for one year. And what did I learn?
That’s the new question. Not, “Why did you do that to yourself?” but, “Well? Was it worth it? Did you learn anything? Did you change for the better … for good?”
As I write this, I’m working the answer out in real time. The answer, in case you are considering your own year of bravery, whatever that may look like, is this:
1. I learned that it sucks and it doesn’t always get better.
Wow! How’s that for a dark, dark lesson? But stick with me, because I actually mean this positively.
It sucked. At least the lead-in to every event, interview, etc. absolutely sucked. The anxiety and the fear. Man, they took so much out of me. Was I nervous or scared or anxious during those events? No. That part got easier. I can speak to a crowd for the correct amount of time with no notes or even any idea of what I want to say and if you are in the audience, you would never guess that I had spent that very morning paralyzed on my couch trying to nap the anxiety into its lonely corner. I have loved every book club I visited, no lie. Once I hit the stage for the TED Talk, everything disappeared and it was was just me and my message. Once Sally Wiggin and I took the stage at the History Center, I was only focused on giving the best of myself to the beautiful people who gave me their evening.
But as the year went on, that baseline of anxiety did not become lower. It weirdly become higher. By the time my last event of the year rolled around, the talk at the Carnegie Library of Squirrel Hill, I was close to my breaking point, unsure of how much more I could take. So yeah, it sucked. Over and over again, it sucked.
But …
2. I learned that bravery isn’t an eraser; it’s a pen.
What the hell does that even mean, Ginny! Is this a Mad Lib? My god, your thinking-sponge is just a pile of word-salad these days.
I’ve been saying! It’s nearly half-a-century old!
But, let me explain.
Deciding to be brave doesn’t erase the thing you’re being brave about. Deciding to fly doesn’t erase your fear of flying. Deciding to climb a mountain doesn’t erase your fear of heights. Deciding to take a professional leap doesn’t erase your fear of failure. Deciding to go off on your own after marriage doesn’t erase your fear of the future. Deciding to try something new doesn’t erase your fear of being really really bad at it. Deciding to be more outgoing doesn’t erase your fear of being hurt.
I think I went into my yes year thinking that repeated bravery would erase my fears and change me into a public person. It did not. Sure I’ve gotten better at public speaking to the point it doesn’t make me nervous, but the fear? Of being a disappointment? Of overstaying my welcome? Of getting an ego and changing from my approachable, self-effacing, nerdy dorky self? Of not hearing something important and looking like an idiot because of it? That’s all still there. I didn’t erase it.
What I did do was write a new story.
Had I said no like I had been doing for 17 years, I would have had the story I’ve always had. I’d feel safe and secure as I stayed within the confines of my comfort zone. It would have been an easy story to write with my lifetime—a shy writer wrote. The end.
But by grabbing on to bravery, I was writing a new story. A new life. Giving myself a sense of purpose and accomplishment with every single yes I survived, regardless of the anxiety and fear that came with it. Being brave means living with INTENTION rather than merely letting life happen to you until one day you blink and suddenly you’re old and wondering what the story would have been had you said yes just a bit more. Had you tried. Had you done the hard, scary things that didn’t come with guarantees.
My new story is this: A shy writer wrote and met amazing people and told her story in a way that helped others and she created new projects and got her book into a bunch of hands and made new friends and learned more about what she is capable of and what kind of person she is and wants to be, and even though she isn’t quite sure what will happen in her life as she finishes grad school and turns 50 freaking years the fork old, knows who her friends are that will support her when the going gets scary, and knows that the story is going to be better than the one she would have written from the warm safe confines of no.
And that is perhaps the biggest lesson as I sit here and say, “What actually WERE the lessons, girl?”
That living with intention? That living life under the weight of a dream or a goal or an uncertainty? That living knowing you’re moving toward something rather than sitting stagnant? That’s the good that comes from all the sucky bravery.
Saying yes means personal progress in spite of sometimes paralyzing fear and anxiety. Saying yes is important and valuable and I’m so glad I did it.
But, lastly, …
3. It’s okay to say no, child; you will still grow.
Damn it, Ginny! You JUST said th-
I said what I said. Now pipe down as I explain it.
Everything in balance. Do I think you should try your own year of cutthroat bravery if you’ve found yourself in a rut? If you’re feeling mired in your present, unfulfilling state of being? Hell, yes. Say yes. Say it without hesitation. Try the new thing. Do the scary thing. Push push push past the confines of your comfort zone to see what growth will germinate through the gaps in the hard, stony surfaces of fear and anxiety.
But then, it’s okay to go back to no.
What changed for me isn’t that I’m going to just say yes to everything forever now, but I will say yes to more things than I used to now that my year of yes is over. Now that I’ve sprouted through those stony surfaces, it is going to take less pushing and more gentle nurturing to ensure my personal growth stays active and alive.
I don’t need to live in a constant state of anxiety in order to experience new things and meet new people. I can say no to some opportunities while I stay cocooned and writing and researching and studying. Some days, it’s okay if I have a bad hearing day that gets me down and not feeling like taking on the anxiety of personal interactions that might only make me feel worse.
Becoming brave doesn’t mean you have to always be brave, but being exceedingly and boldly and a little bit nuttily brave for a set time does make taking smaller braveries a bit easier. And enough of those small braveries will add up to your personal growth journey continually bearing fruit.
And so I return to me now, because bravery didn’t erase me because bravery is not an eraser. I’m still shy. I’m still awkward. I still have days where I curse my stupid dead ears and the troubles they cause me. I still would rather not have eyes or cameras on me. I still would rather I be my words than my “brand,” whatever the hell that is. But also still? I will write. I will live. I will say yes. I will welcome the weight of my next dream. I will grow. I will fight. I will love. I will share.
These are my words; I give you them, and sometimes, I will give you me.