I am a veteran. My battle scars were not acquired upon foreign soil, but rather from the internal landscapes of heart-yanking, gut-gnarling and soul-wringing grief ... those less-than-tasty servings from the buffet of life experience.

I’ve felt the earth move under my feet and, with all due respect to singer-songwriter extraordinaire Carole King, it’s terrifying. Moreover, my life as I knew it — not the sky — came tumbling down, tumbling down.

Everyone has disappointments. The secret is remembering the past, and trusting that the future will unfold as planned. A dear friend of mine once told me that if I wanted to hear God laugh, I would tell him my plans. And she’s right, at least in this case.

Nobody was rooting harder than I was for the Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Green Bay Packers on January 15, 1967. It was the first world championship football game between the American and National Football Leagues in the country’s history. I just wanted it over.

I’d moved from college into an apartment on Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, and I set out looking for work with the optimism of the Chiefs on their way to that historic first Super Bowl.

I remember when I was 16, I came into the kitchen one morning for breakfast. I wasn’t greeted with my mother’s usual, “Good morning,” but rather by a look of shock mixed with a slight hint of amusement.
“Shellie, where did you get that?” she asked, trying to hold back her laughter.

When I found out that my mother had Alzheimer’s, a friend gave me a book. There was a quote in it that said, “To tell you about how Alzheimer’s Disease has affected my mother, I’ll have to tell you who she was before Alzheimer’s.” I think that is what a big part of this journey has been about: finding out who my mother was and is, and also who I was and am becoming because of it. It’s kind of ironic that I am transitioning into being a caregiver for a woman who spent her entire life being that for so many other people.

I think my love story should be a book, a movie, a mini-series. Ever since August when it was announced over the air (I’m a 92Q radio personality) that I was pregnant and engaged, people have been asking me to explain it all. I never know where to start. How do you explain 24 years in a few minutes? The short version is that at 37, my first (everything) is going to be my third husband and the father of my third child.

In life, there are good days and bad days. I’m at a place now where most are good, and that’s great.  I remember the last time I had a relapse, and I’m proud to say it was last year. I say “proud” because when you’re battling an eating disorder, every moment counts and you have to learn to celebrate every triumph. Anyway, for some reason, chocolate cake is my “trigger.” Every time I eat it, I have to fight the urge to throw up.

When asked why she thinks she was voted one of HerNashville’s most “women-friendly” businesses, Lavish Events owner Tara Stouder-Milam hesitates momentarily before wisely surmising,

“The majority of my clients are women, and I do whatever I can to make them feel at ease and to make their dreams come true.”

After speaking with this savvy entrepreneur, it’s easy to see why dreams are coming true both Tara’s life and in the lives of those she touches.

“People in Nashville love to get married.”

Retropolitan owner Amy Heimermann makes interior space fresh, fun and personal.

AmyHeimermann has a gift; a talent for making a house a home. While her eye for design is unquestionably superb, her gift, really, is getting inside the heads of her clients and helping them define their own styles.

Probably every woman who has walked into a fancy, high-priced clothing store has felt, at least briefly, the urge to check her self-esteem at the door. The impeccably dressed salespeople, the meticulously arranged displays, and even the lighting and music often create an intimidating atmosphere. All but the most confident fashionistas may yearn to escape to the anonymity of familiar department stores and mall retailers.

But how can a woman cultivate her own personal style with a wardrobe full of mass-marketed, widely available clothing?

Figuring out what works for me ... that’s what I do best.

Starting at an early age, I proved a frustration for responsible adults, including my teachers and parents. During my primary school years, I could have easily acquired a vast sum of money had I charged a dollar for every time a teacher told me —
or worse, my mother — that I did not work up to my potential.

East Nashville’s Hooprama has no sign over its door, but students filled nearly every class in August. Owner (and aptly-named) Sunny Becks teaches the hula hooping classes, and for her, few activities contribute to the development of the whole person like hooping.

In 2007, more than 500,000 American lives were prematurely extinguished by cancer, a statistic that Nashvillian Sheila Bates knows well. “I call it going to Cancerland,” says Bates, whose father died of lung cancer at age 47; she was 23. “My life was irrevocably changed.”

We have a saying here that no two days at The Community Foundation are the same,” Ellen Lehman explains with a smile, attempting to describe a “typical” day at Middle Tennessee’s premier grant-making organization. From meeting with donors to planning new initiatives to signing thank-you notes, the president’s day-to-day activities are all deeply entwined with what she calls “the charitable goals and dreams” of the Middle Tennessee community.

While droves of carefree, sun-worshiping co-eds flocked to beaches and exotic adventures during school breaks, Kristen Keely-Dinger, along with her compassionate contemporaries, devoted their time off to Vanderbilt University’s alternative spring break program, which offers a selfless alternative to the otherwise self-serving season. It was this program along with local volunteer organizations that exposed the then pre-med Keely-Dinger to the world of charitable action, causing her to re-direct her plans for the future toward community service.

What Bono does for AIDS awareness, Becca Stevens does for prostitutes. Of course, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Bono, but I have seen some interviews, and he seems to be a really cool guy; someone who is celebrated as one of the most influential philanthropists of our time (cool) and yet his focus seems to be more on his cause than the fame he’s gained from it (so much cooler).

Don’t yank my string! Menopausal wisdom is a myth.

Menopause snuck up on me. Unlike far-sightedness and varicose veins, which I simply woke up with one day, the winding down of my reproductive system was not as sudden ... or obvious. It took me some time to admit that global warming may not be causing me to overheat like aluminum foil in a microwave. At 45, menopause wasn’t on my “to do” list. And being the high priestess of list-making, if it wasn’t on my list, it didn’t exist.

It’s a weeknight at around 11 p.m., and I’m huddled under my bed sheets nearly at the gates of Dreamland when a sound comes from the adjoining bathroom. Jolted from a semi-conscious state, my ears hone in on the creature’s wild ramblings. First a growl, then a couple of sniffs, a stomp or two. Lastly, an overly dramatic sigh followed by these bellowing words: “Erin! Can you PLEASE get all of your hairs out of the sink? They’re so gross!”

The first time I saw Eric, I actually didn’t “see” him at all. I noticed someone slouched up against a wall outside the bus station in Philadelphia, but I had no idea it was him. I walked right by and instead paced around near the entrance, scanning the small gathering of luggage-laden people for Eric’s tall, wiry frame. He eventually revealed himself from his perch with a silly grin on his face; he’d been watching me the whole time.