"Roberta Flack's voice fills the room the night my friend Julian asks me about my first boyfriend. Julian sings Roberta's sensual lyrics as he pulls me closer to him on the dance floor. I can still feel his body next to mine. "You know, as I look at you tonight, Diane, I wish I had been the first boy to fall in love with you." I was all of eleven years old when my neighbor Johnny fell for me. Johnny came to my backyard with his grandmother's diamond ring, got down on his knee, and asked me to marry him. He claimed that his Italian grandparents married when they were twelve, just one year older than we were. "Oh my God, Diane, that was 1953 when Johnny brought you a diamond. You were an emerging Diva then. Just the thought of you in a poodle skirt is turning me on. You still have some of that eleven-year-old spunkiness in you. I'm so attracted to you right now. Meet me at the Brown Palace for a nightcap," he says, putting his hand on my butt." Witty, profound, and a bit cheeky, "Seven Lives: A Diva's Story" is a journey through the seven stages of my life, marked by my seven nicknames: Rare Orchid: a survivor, Tough Cookie: a performer, Ginger: an academy girl, Princess: a wife, Gypsy: a free-spirited, single woman, Diva: a wealthy entrepreneur, and Collector: an art connoisseur. Over the years, I discover that being a Diva is not limited to being a show-off, self-important, pretentious, or even obnoxious. I'm certainly not an opera singer, the definition of the word diva in Webster's dictionary. I define Diva as a person who is strong, self-aware, and free of society's boxes.