I have a confession to make. Several, actually. 

I’m a completely obsessive fangirl. When I was a teenager, the obsession was over ’80s hair bands. I think my parents thought my obsessive nature would fade with time. It hasn’t. 

Things I have obsessed over in my adulthood include “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Dave Matthews Band, Real Salt Lake soccer, Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, Modest Mouse, “Stranger Things”— and the list goes on. 

These obsessions have included road trips to see bands, multiple visits to Comic Con, lurking after events to snag autographs, and home décor that includes action figures, Lego sets, autographed soccer balls and signed concert posters. 

Confession two is that I’m a politics junkie. I love politics. It is quite simply fascinating. While getting my public administration degree I didn’t skim my textbooks. I read every word of every chapter. I didn’t sell my books back at the end of each semester, even though I could have really used the money. I still have them all, lined up on bookshelves, and I still get them out and use them as references. 

Confession three: I’m a crier. I cry when I’m sad, I cry when I’m happy, I cry when I’m overwhelmed, I cry when I’m angry, I cry when I’m out hiking and in nature, I cry at movies and while watching TV shows, I cry while reading books, I cry when watching my kids perform or even just play. I regularly laugh so hard I cry. 

Other confessions: I’m a terrible singer, but if you drive past me on the way to work I’m probably having a one-woman concert to whatever may be playing in my car. A really loud but very enthusiastic concert. 

I’m also not a dancer, but if you catch me in the kitchen cooking dinner I’m probably dancing while I’m doing it. Singing, too. 

Finally, I love words. There are some words I just can’t get enough of. I love the way they feel in my mouth when I say them, I love what they mean. I love the subtleties of language. 

For those who know me, even a little, none of these are actually confessions at all. I tend to be pretty open about my obsessive, politics-loving, crying, singing and dancing self. The things I tend to love the most are those that can combine any — or all — of these things. 

Imagine, if you will, something that allows me to feed my passion for politics, words and music, that allows me to completely geek out in the best possible way. 

That, my friends, is what I was able to experience this past Sunday when my husband, kids and I took in a matinee performance of “Hamilton” at the Eccles Theatre in Salt Lake City. 

I love live theater. I love movies and TV, too, but there’s something about live theater that allows the audience to completely lose themselves. 

I’ve taken in quite a bit of theater in my life, but when my husband and I decided to become season ticket holders at the Eccles during its opening season the fact that “Hamilton” would be coming a couple of years down the road was the primary reason. 

We knew getting tickets would be a fight and that season ticket holder status would guarantee our seats, so we jumped. We weren’t throwing away our shot. 

It’s been fantastic, and we’ve loved every show we’ve been to, but “Hamilton” is something we’ve been waiting literally years for. 

I myself was drawn to the notion of “Hamilton” from the first time I heard that some crazy guy, Lin Manuel Miranda, had chosen to write a hip-hop musical, featuring a multicultural cast, about Alexander Hamilton. 

I think everyone was a bit surprised by its success and the way it took the world by storm. After all, the idea of setting the birth of a nation and the crafting of a government to hip-hop is not exactly without risk. Those things don’t seem to go together. 

But for anyone who has actually listened to the music or seen it live, it not only makes sense, it is a work of absolute, inspired, incomparable genius. 

What “Hamilton” the musical has done is make our past accessible and exciting when many people find learning about our past to be dull and uneventful. It’s taken this notion we tend to have of a bunch of old white guys sitting in a room talking about the government and turned it on its head. 

With its use of a multicultural cast, it’s made our founding accessible to the millions of us who don’t see ourselves reflected in a narrative consisting of only white men. 

Of course, it’s not completely historically accurate. That’s not the point. 

The point is that it accurately portrays how truly revolutionary the ideas behind our founding were. It accurately portrays that many of the founders were not old at all and were in fact rebellious young men. And it accurately points out that, in spite of our romanticized notions about our “Founding Fathers,” these were complex and imperfect people. 

Our founders weren’t all in complete agreement about how to shape the country — not even close. 

Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal, yet he owned slaves whom he didn’t even set free upon his death. 

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison joined forces to write the Federalist Papers to defend the Constitution, but shortly thereafter fought as bitter enemies and as the “fathers” of the two first political parties in our country. 

The musical explores these complexities and contradictions. 

And it does so combining words and music in a way that literally takes my breath away. I love words, remember? So, a hip-hop musical that fits in phrases like “a bunch of revolutionary manumission abolitionists” and “I am inimitable, I am an original,” and refers to Jefferson and Madison being “intransigent,” that talks about policy as sausage making and every American experiment setting a precedent? 

Well, that just gives this word-loving, politics-loving, music-loving fangirl goosebumps. So much so that the regular title of my column, “A Million Things,” is completely 100 percent inspired by “Hamilton.”

My love for all things “Hamilton” is immeasurably increased because it is shared with my family. 

My husband, kids and I have been singing the soundtrack for more than a year. We know every word. Hardly a day goes by that one of us doesn’t throw a “Hamilton” line into conversation somewhere. 

We’ve had many political discussions around the dinner table and during car trips about rural versus urban political positions, smaller versus larger government, Hamilton versus Jefferson, and on and on.

My son, who has an uncanny ability to play Devil’s Advocate and look at all viewpoints of a situation, has spent more than a year lobbying for “Farmer Refuted,” my least favorite song and his favorite. 

We’ve written Lin Manuel Miranda fan letters and gotten responses, which are now a framed part of our home décor. 

We even all dressed as “Hamilton” characters last Halloween. 

We were all so excited to attend this production. My daughter, long past patiently waiting, spent the weeks prior to the show counting down the days and the half hour prior to curtain continually asking, “How many more minutes?” 

When the house lights finally dimmed, and I heard those opening lines of “Alexander Hamilton,” my 8-year-old daughter wrapped her little fingers in mine, the goosebumps came on, and I helplessly cried — for the following two-plus hours.