Holly is having kind of a rough time right now.  She thought she was handling things OK, but then she realized she had started thinking in the third person while driving home last night.  You see, when something happens that is too big for her to handle, she tends to step aside and watch it like an impartial observer in an election.  That way, she can empathize and sympathize and say helpful things like "This too shall pass" or as Brutus put it upon learning of the death of his wife "With meditating that she must die once, I have the patience to endure it now."  Which has to be one of her favorite quotes.  She'll be OK, in time.  She's gone through worse in the last few years.  The thing is, for her, events don't fade.  Even though she's worked through them, and keeps living her life, everything that's ever happened to her is still fresh.  For 3 or 4 months in the beginning of 2006, she couldn't go out into social settings, because when she saw someone she knew, every stupid and hurtful thing she'd ever done or experienced would come flooding back and she'd end up hiding in the bathroom biting her wrists to keep her crying quiet.  Since things never go away, in order to stay functional, she has to run into them instead of away from them.  She has to ride through the pain or sorrow or embarrassment or whatever, and experience all of it as intensely as possible, because having once done so and survived, she can pick up and keep going.  Sometimes, she has to revisit things because they creep back up.  Sometimes, she will learn about something from a long time ago, or remember something she did which she didn't realize was an issue at the time, but is so sorry for now.  Even though its long in the past, she still has to process it as if it just happened yesterday, because now is the only time she can deal with it - since it will never fade out, every moment by moment that becomes now, she will still carry it.  And every time she sees the people involved, or hears their names, or thinks of them, or is with the people who were connected to them, it is right there again.  That is how she is made.  That is how her brain is wired.  Do not adjust your sets.  This is normal.  Well, not normal, but usual.

   She is not whining, or asking for pity, but if you have any extra measure of grace to give, she'd appreciate it.  Be gentle with her for a while, because blowing out the volume setting on any emotion, especially the darker ones, leaves her sort of blank, and numb, and prone to suddenly start tearing up in public places, like at work.  Where she is now, which sort of sucks.  Fortunately, she's passing it off as a cold.  She really doesn't want to talk to you about it.  It can't fixed it or improved in any way by anything you might say.  In this case, actual events are long in the past.  She's just going through a season of storms.  Let her know you understand that while she isn't okay, she is okay with not being okay for now.  You can show you love her anytime you want (And believe you her, she knows you all do, as you've proved it time after time) but let her handle this in the way that works best for her.  Normally, she goes for as much seclusion as possible during this phase, sort of like a retreat, but that's not really practical now.  She isn't alone by herself anymore, and she doesn't want to hurt people who are close to her but don't know this part of her by suddenly dropping off the face of the planet physically, whatever she may be doing emotionally.  She thinks she may have finally found out what sort of support could help, but she can't have it yet.  She doesn't know how she would ever cope if she had to give up that hope and face a future of being completely alone again, and that sometimes scares her.

   I has been H4X0R3D!1!!11!  This is what happens when your boyfriend is a ninja hacker.    And when you trust him with your password.    S'okay, actually, I was standing behind him when he did it.    Ahm likin' this guy -- think Ahm gonna keep 'im fur a while, mebbe longer.  Also, I'm gonna consider the fact that whenever I text/IM/e-mail someone, I have no idea who could be standing right behind THEM, and reading every word.  I'm still all sparkly, just slightly more sustainably so when distracted by "real life" and "being a grownup".

'E's a right proper figure 'o a fellow, then, in't 'E?