Story time.

This is the story about a foolish girl. A foolish girl who thought her love could fix someone and hold a broken relationship together. A foolish girl who loved puppies a little too much. A foolish girl that had more money in her bank account than she should have.

This is the story of my freshman year of college and how I lost the dog I raised. And my attempt at the Sparknotes version of it.

I had the same boyfriend from sophomore year until I graduated. We were butt crazy in love with each other for most of that time. The summer after our senior year, I would walk into his house without even a "hello" from him. He would barely even look up from the video game he was playing. His brothers hung out with me more than he did. But our lives were so intertwined that I could not imagine daily life as myself without him. Stupid, I know.

So we broke up. He was utterly and completely devastated, as was I, but I was ready to move on and apparently he was not.

I came to college, tried the whole "dating" thing and then remembered that I am not a dating girl.

I got back together with that boy from high school. It was comfortable. Everything was great.

One day, while perusing the pet store in the mall I fell in absolute and uncontrollable love with a cairn terrier. I begged and begged my boyfriend for her. He lived in a house, I lived (or at least kept my stuff at) in the dorms.

I named her Isabella. Known as Izzy. She was $600.00. We split the cost. I was loaded from working for Montana senator Max Baucus for the summer. We verbally agreed that if we ever broke up, he would give me my $300.00 back.

To quote Jack Kerouac, "everything fell apart." All of this built up ugliness toward each other came out of us. We broke up. It was particularly ugly and incredibly sticky.

We shared custody of our beautiful dog for about a year.

Then he went inexplicably nuts and told me I could never see her again.

I miss her astronomically. She is my sunshine.

She has more personality than most people I know. She always has to have the last word. She is so cute that I always have to be holding her when she is around. She LOVES walks. She LOVES mornings so much. She always woke me up by running all over the bed, digging on my pillow and licking me.

I haven't seen her since Thanksgiving. It is horrible.

Please excuse my extreme affinity for taking pictures of her with my cell phone.