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Girl Crush:
Life After Loss Anastasia Brown talks to her girl crush contemporaries about surviving and thriving after personal tragedy BY ANASTASIA BROWN PHOTOS BY ALAINA MULLIN
I
n this Instagram era, a “perfect life” appears to be the norm. I know from experience, however, that that is far from reality. After losing a soul mate or a child, a job or a life you once loved, reality hits hard, the darkness sets in and questions abound. As I go into a deep dive with two women I’ve had girl crushes on for decades, we approach these emotional stories with the frame of mind of a survivor, not a victim. In all honesty, I believe our shared great loss is one of the reasons both of these friendships developed such an unbreakable bond. When I asked a Hall of Fame songwriter and a celebrity beauty stylist to open up about their stories, they were both hesitant. They pretty much echoed the same message: “I don’t want people to define me by my tragedy but by my creativity.” Well, they don’t have to worry because the creative thumbprints they’ve each already left in their respective industries are much more pronounced than all they’ve had to overcome. Nashville’s treasure Matraca Berg wrote her first number one song at the age of 18 and is one of the youngest inductees in history into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Nashville’s best-kept style secret, Melanie Shelley, was in Monte Carlo, Monaco, working with Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman when I did this interview.
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