Hyperbole and a Half is back

It is possible that somehow you missed the biggest news on the Internet this week. If you have, I'll fill you in: Hyperbole and a Half is back.

Hyperbole and a Half is one of the funniest and most popular blogs in existence. Written and illustrated by Allie Brosh, each longform piece is accompanied by crudely-drawn but idiosyncratic images that have spread throughout the Internet in the form of memes - usually presented without attribution, but easily recognized by her fans. I first became aware of Allie Brosh's brilliant blog through the post The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas. That was posted in December of 2010. There would only be five more posts from Allie through 2011, none in 2012, and nothing more from her until this week. Her final post in 2011, Adventures in Depression, gave some hint as to what was about to come.

Allie's silence was broken by occasional messages attributed to her that appeared on message boards during her absence, though their authenticity was disputed. There was even a Facebook page set up by her, or by someone else on her behalf, and that is where I first heard the news that Allie was coming back. That post gave a foretaste of the post that would follow.

On Thursday, May 9, 2013 Allie posted an account of what she's been going through during her absence. And it is brutal.

Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two

I thought I had some sense of what depression was. I now realize I did not. Clearly Allie did not either, before going through all this herself: the exhilarating feeling of nobody-can-hurt-me, I-can-do-anything numbness she described in Adventures in Depression spread out into a nihilistic abyss of numbness and nothingness, a relentless, featureless plane with no sign of hope anywhere.

You should read her most recent post.

You should read the rest of her blog, too. The 81 posts she wrote and illustrated in 2009, the 80 in 2010, the five in 2011. They are fun and funny, and that sense is barely diminished by the knowledge of where Allie is now. Will the fun and funny Allie ever come back? No one can say. But her most recent post ends with a grain - literally, a kernel - of hope, that maybe there is something out there for her other than nothingness. And that kernel gives the rest of us hope, too.