It's hard to believe the end is coming.

This is a post about love.

First, let’s start with an image that sums up everything we’re all feeling right now:

That’s an actual picture of me from this weekend. I’m kidding. My bra was silver.

A dear friend I’ve known for more than 30 years (going on 40 but we don’t talk about friendships like that even though I just did because how fucking magical is it that you’ve known — truly KNOWN someone for four decades and can still consider them one of your ride-or-dies? Cara, I am so sorry I outed our four-decade friendship but not really because you are spectacular and I look forward to another few decades of amazing group text threads.)

But I digress.

This post — my first in a few years — is about love.

She turns 15 this month and it’s so hard to believe the end is coming. I remember the day I brought Penelope home from the Lied County animal shelter in Vegas. A mere seven months old and very (very) man-gry. She barked and cowered at any man who entered the house and I could totally sympathize only wonder what had happened in a mere seven months to make her feel this way.

Flash forward to 14.5 years later and she’s no longer mangry. She adores Philip and I’m now relegated to what we call “second favorite status” in our home. Over the past seven years that Philip and I have been together, we’ve built up this incredible backstory for her. She led a hard-scrabbled life on the streets of Paris, desperate to score her break in the cutthroat world of modeling. And one day, she wandered into a bar called Hippopotamus. And there, she met the owner — named Hippopotamus, of course. And in an instant, she not only became a waitress in a cocktail bar (this much is true). She fell in love with the partner who would support all of her modeling dreams.

Fueled by a diet of cigarettes and prosecco, Penelope relentlessly pursued her runway dreams. And she was certain that she’d be eternally stuck in the accessories circuit, moving from handbag to tote to handbag and forever known as a “purse puppy.”

Until the day she met Gianni Versace backstage during Paris Fashion Week. From the moment he scooped her out of a patent leather tote and held her up to the sky, Penelope knew that this moment was a collision of suns. That together, she and Gianni would shine brighter than any light — natural or manmade — until they became a supernova.

That was the day Penelope walked down the runway of Paris Fashion Week. She would never again be merely a purse puppy. And she would never forget the look on Hippo’s face in the front row as she whipped her haunches around as deep house music filled the air. She through she saw him drool a bit. And that filled her tiny little heart with joy. We’ll skip the part about how she almost shivved Paris Hilton at the Versace afterparty when she got too close to Her Potamus.

Now, Penelope’s nearing supernova status. One day, sooner rather than later, she will have lived a life so very full of adventure that she will become a powerful and luminous explosion.

And that explosion will be in my heart.

She’s pretty much deaf. We use hand signals to say “outside!” and she no longer hears us come home. She’s still spry and has what we call her “one bean” a day, right around 3pm, when all the energy she’s stored up for the day gets let loose and she does a hilarious Parkour routine around the house.

But she’ll also stand there in the middle of the floor, completely lost. It’s obvious she’s forgotten where she is (even when we’re right there). And when we get close to tell her we’re still here, she’s like BITCH I KNOW!

It’s hard to believe the end is coming because Penelope has a voice in our house. An actual voice. Her presence is so much a part of our marriage that neither Philip nor I can fathom what the house will sound like without one of us speaking in her voice.

And part of that feels super stupid to admit — that our dog has a voice and this whole magnificent backstory of a Parisian life — because it’s 100% make-believe. And what kind of idiot makes up such a grand story about their dogs?

But sometimes love makes us do crazy things. I think with Penelope (and Hippo, whom we dearly miss), my love for her has been so big that it couldn’t be contained in the everyday life of a dog. So, I created an extraordinary life for her — filled with world travels and supermodel success and various shivving incidents* when some bitch (like, an actual bitch) named Angelina kept sniffing Hippo’s ass while they were out at a rave rolling on Molly one night.

*no convictions

And what a glorious gift we give ourselves and the world when we actively seek ways to make the love in our lives take up more space in the universe.

The beauty of love comes from the inevitability of the supernova — knowing that everything we gave, felt, hoped and experienced will burst within us. That as the one we love explodes into the tiniest pieces so that they can become one with the universe, we can relish having felt something so fucking big that we can’t imagine being without that bigness in our hearts.

What a fan-goddamn-tastic love story.

xoxo.

E.