Club goin' up, on a Tuesday (Club's goin' up but Dimmesdale's dragging me down)

I've made the random decision to blog tonight. 

I mean, there's, you know, college, and homework, and a gallon of ice cream with my name on it somewhere in the freezer...but I feel like I need to get this off my chest (sometimes you have to make catharsis a priority). 

Class was rough for me today.

 I LOATHE Arthur Dimmesdale.

We've had some "difficult to love characters" so far in AP Lit. But wow, this guy just takes the cake (for me at least, I know Sara Swords is somewhere out there ready to jump to the defense of her bae).

 And although I had a great debate team (shout out to Phoebe, Sarah, Courtney, Olivia, and Caroline), I won't lie: my heart wasn't in it. Let's be real, nowadays if some guy got his girlfriend pregnant and then up and left her to raise the child on her own so he could resume his career as an aspiring youth minister, society would not extol him and we would all call him out on it. 

Admittedly, I do have a little sympathy for the man. 

He did suffer some and was stalked by Chillingworth (a fate I literally wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, Chillingworth was creepy af)

Also just randomly, my brother saw me blogging about TSL and insisted I put in this Asian-Dad meme:

(Sam's a bit of a wacko, but he's family, and plus this is also something I could totally see my dad saying)

Why do I hate Dimmesdale so much? That's taken me longer to figure out. Initially I thought it was because I hated his "woe is me, let me tell you about my secret pain", and I do hate him for that. Plus, even if he was inflicting pain upon himself, it was not alright for him to leave Hester on her own. He is not a stand up guy. 

But in all seriousness (and it's time to be vulnerable now), I think it might be because I see a bit of myself when I read about him. I am not an adulterous reverend in Puritan-Hell, Massachusetts. I don't climb scaffolding at night to yell to my fellow villagers. I don't give fantastic religious sermons. But, there was a time in my life where maybe he and I weren't so different. I have a tendency to trust manipulative people, and that's gotten me into serious trouble in the past. Overwhelmingly cliché, I know, but unfortunately true.

Real talk: Sometimes you think you know someone, and then they change, and that hurts. Sometimes you lose best friends, sometimes you lose loves. We've talked about it a lot this year. There's been "The Art of Losing". Newland has left Ellen. Daisy has died. Brett and Jake have grown apart. Dimmesdale? I would say he lost Hester, but then again, he and Hester were never really together were they? He was always hiding. 

I'm putting a poem below. From my second favorite poet, Charles Bukowski:

"in this cage some songs are born"

I write poetry, worry, smile,

laugh

sleep 

continue for a while

just like most of us

just like all of us;

sometimes I want to hug all

Mankind on earth

and say,

god damn all this that they’ve brought down

upon us,

we are brave and good

even though we are selfish

and kill each other and

kill ourselves,

we are the people

born to kill and die and weep in dark rooms

and love in dark rooms,

and wait, and

wait and wait and wait.

we are the people.

we are nothing

more.

Dimmesdale...maybe he was a bit of a coward. But we all have moments of cowardice. We've all screwed up, but I believe, despite everything, it is enough to be human, even amidst all of our chaos.

Also, a little side thought, just found this side quote from Nathan H. :

(Was this really the same Nathan who wrote The Scarlet Letter? Wow…what a man. And happiness is a butterfly? Pretty bold metaphor, Nate. I like to think he was having an existential crisis while writing the Scarlet letter and then when he popped out this quote he was eating waffles or something…)

Anne