Two centuries on and that girl still rubs me the wrong way...

  There's a peril in the work of historians.  I play with incomplete pieces of other people's lives. I meddle and muddle about with their things, read their words, interpret their motives and intentions.  And then, occasionally, I find myself liking one of them.  Or feeling wretched that, though she didn't know it, she was only a few months away from her own death.  Or, as was the case all day today at the archive in Boston, wanting to strangle her.
 
   It's particularly perilous in my dissertation, though I didn't see it coming when I proposed the topic.  See, the thing is -- teenage angst is shockingly consistent.  Its expression, of course, varies.  But even before the term "teenagers" was coined they were still out there, slouching around, writing overwrought poetry, complaining about their cruel and heartless parents, and sniping at their siblings.  I really didn't think about having to spend my days elbow-deep in the diaries and letters and things of moody, emotionally-charged, angst-riddled teens.  Honestly, what was I thinking?

  Here's the thing, though.  Despite their whining, they're fabulously interesting.  I love that they bounce between self-absorption and startling depth in the course of one diary entry.  I love that, though some two centuries separate us, they make me laugh out loud (take that stodgy reading room!!)  I love that while they were being dismissed as insignificant because of their age and gender,  as a group they scared the pants off the founding fathers.  Worth the angst?  Probably.

  So, as a continue my life as big historical snoop - or rather, serious academic researcher - I'll keep reminding myself that, for every pretentious and overwound Hannah there's a wry and snarky Eleu.  For every angsty Amelia there's a sunny Mary, dying at 19 but still writing her heart out.  And however frustrated they all make me, and they all frustrate the hell out of me from time to time (because goodness knows it's best to never sign or date your letters, refer to everyone by a series of cryptic nicknames and black out all the good bits),  it means something. And I've got to hand it to 'em - they left something behind.  And, whether they imagined it or not, they've made it possible for me to read their lives between the lines.   Probably worth a few bad poems about the loneliness of the sea...