And sometime during that dinner, as the parental units wanted to know Sarah's and my personal plans for the future, someone (I believe her father) asked me just why it was that I loved history so much.
I always have loved history. It's my true passion in life (other than "Gravity Falls" and the paranormal and my friendship with Sarah of course!) but I wasn't quite sure how to answer why. The answer I came up with rings surprisingly true, though:
At the end of all the historical battles and treaties and monuments that we learn about, all the historical figures behind them were people, like you and me. They were human beings with their own hopes, their own dreams, their own stories. My job really ties into this aspect of historical fascination, as I tell the story of Sarah Winchester and her crushed hopes of a happy family she never got to have, the poor dear - and because of this I see her as a human being. A friend. Humans are social animals, and I chose an anthropology major rather than a history major for... well, multiple reasons, but one of them being that I like people. People fascinate me far more than battles and treaties and monuments.
But the problem with people today is I don't understand them. I've always had trouble relating to other people due to my history with various mental illnesses. I've never been able to understand people. But historical figures are dead. They're fixed in time, letting me learn about them without them changing constantly before my eyes. Letting me care about them without worrying about them leaving me forever.
And as a history fan sometimes I can do weird things.
For example, yesterday was Alexander Hamilton's birthday, either his 259th or 261st (there is argument as to which year he was born because he may have lied to make himself seem older so he seemed more distinguished and experienced, or he may have lied at another point to make himself seem younger, and we're not sure which).
I've been a massive fan of Alexander Hamilton since I first discovered him in a documentary about Thomas Jefferson when I was 17. (And if you're wondering, I am not a fan of T.Jeff's. The man was a racist, an asshole, and a huge hypocrite in all aspects of his life.) A.Ham has long been on my list for an ideal historical dinner party (along with his boyfriend John Laurens, Catherine the Great, Olga Romanov, and my beloved Sarah Winchester) and he's without a doubt one of my favourite historical figures.
Hamilton was brilliant. Basically built our entire treasury from scratch, climbed up the political ladder from nothing, founded the New York Post and the Coast Guard, wrote 51 of the Federalist Papers... in the words of the Broadway hit musical "Hamilton" (which is excellent), "Man, the man was non-stop!"
He was also belligerent, and his inability to keep his opinions to himself earned him a lot of enemies. But this, too, only makes me love him more. It's a massive character flaw and it makes him so human to me.
And everything he did - every political breakthrough he made, every fight he picked with Jefferson or Burr or Adams or whoever - he did it all despite being an immigrant, a bastard, a trauma survivor who may have had PTSD (which is comforting for me considering how much PTSD has run my life), and a bisexual (again, look up John Laurens).
That's well worth celebrating. Of course I made plans to celebrate his birthday, with Sarah who also adores him, even if Hamilton himself probably did not celebrate it due to being such a fucking workaholic. We ate cake (lemon for me, chocolate for her), dressed up (myself in a shirt from Poland because "Immigrants - we get the job done!" is my fave line in "Hamilton"; Sarah in a "Hamilton" shirt), rewatched "I Made America", and listened to some of the "Hamilton" soundtrack. All in honour of the man himself.
So Happy Birthday, Alexander, you brilliant, beautiful, bisexual, belligerent, badass man! If there is an afterlife, I hope you had a good one.
-Nym-
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