#YESgirl Feb 5 2023

The narrator of the story, known as Yes Girl, shares her experience of using a sign to get the attention of Simon Le Bon, the lead singer of Duran Duran. Despite not meeting him on a TV show, she continued to bring the sign to their concerts and eventually met Simon in Lake Tahoe. The significance of saying "yes" in her life is emphasized, as she has always been willing to take on challenges and try new things without fear. She reflects on how fear is relative and how she has overcome her own fears through breathing, writing, laughing, and singing. Saying "yes" has led her to new opportunities and experiences she never imagined. The narrator encourages others to take the first step and embrace saying "yes" in their own lives. Simon Le Bon, the incredibly charismatic lead singer of Duran Duran, knows me as Yes Girl. I'd made the sign three years earlier as an answer to Simon's question, is anybody hungry? That he would ask before singing Hungry Like the Wolf. At their Reno show, my friend held up the yes sign and I held up a sign that read, we were just on the Ellen show together. A few days earlier, Simon and I had only been feet apart on Ellen, where I hoped he and I would finally meet, a dream my community had followed and supported for over a decade. Although we didn't meet on the show, I wasn't ready to give up. The yes sign came with me to Oakland, where Simon pointed at it and smiled. The next night in San Francisco, he saw me and called out, there's my Yes Girl. We finally met at their concert in Lake Tahoe, and he was even lovelier than I imagined. He autographed my yes sign, adding, Simon loves Bridie. What began as a silly way to get his attention turned out to have far more significance because I hadn't realized the power of yes in my life. I've always been one to say yes without worrying about whether or not I could actually do the thing I agreed to. Becoming a class five whitewater raft guide without really knowing how to swim, becoming a teacher before I had a credential, competing for a dance trophy when I was more concerned with peeing my pants in front of thousands than winning, and recently auditioning for a show, Listen to Your Mother, in New York City, and getting it. I think it's because fear is relative to what we know. Growing up in chaos and dangerous dysfunction, it taught me the difference between my actual fear and fear I imagined. Not to say my thoughts were any less scary, moving through me as anxiety, stress, panic, and worry, but I could manage them by breathing, writing, laughing, and singing, to Duran Duran, of course. As a child and a teenager, actual fear was a physical that I couldn't control because it was done to me, thrown at me, and shoved on me. Fear shivered in goosebumps on my skin, panicked in shallow breaths under my blankets, and bruised purple on my freckled arms and legs. Saying yes, even though I might fail, fall on my face, or make a fool of myself, has never scared me because it's mental and I am mostly in charge of my mind. Although sometimes I still hear the whispers, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not strong enough. Every time I say yes, even when I'm not sure how to pull off what I've agreed to, the voice is muzzled, almost mute. Yes is risky and vulnerable, but when we've experienced fear, physical or mental, we are changed and often come out stronger, smarter, and more capable. Of course, saying yes has its limits. I'm not a heel-low person at all, but it's introduced me to amazing people, the picture here is evidence, taken me to incredible places, and given me experiences I never imagined. Martin Luther King Jr. said, you don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. I love this advice because it makes starting anything easier. I just take it one step at a time, practicing and preparing until I know it's the best I can do. Then, I un-muzzle that little voice and tell her, we're going to do great. So write your first paragraph, study that first chapter, learn those first steps, run the first block, memorize those first lines, then tell us what you've said yes to. Write on.