The CRUX

Hello, hello! Happy midweekend, happy midsummer! Happy me blogging three posts in a month, let alone a week! I'm proud of myself taking some time to sit down and reflect, even if my words are not great or deep or interesting or funny. Sometimes we just aren't any of those things and that needs to be acknowledged and recorded too. After going out last night (and basically evading a mugging/attack) I decided that tonight is a night I need to stay in, relax and enjoy my plants, stretchy pants and some microwavable mandoo. Livin' the dream people.

Although today sort of did move like a dream now that I mention it. (Let's go with this...)So I was in my own world (still am)... Slept in and woke to a telephone ring. Didn't pick up. Kept sleeping. Finally rolled out. Ate some cereal. Clumsily picked out a pair of earrings--super cute by the way, put on some purple eyeshadow because I was feeling purple, put together a cheesy pasta concoction for lunch, and meandered out the door to my coche. Was disoriented because a neighborhood fest blocked my normal street route. It was the last day of my "new job" and there were several social agendas going on tonight, lots of text messages going on during the day--but I mentally blocked my calendar--envisioning the night turning toward solitude. And it has become just that and its beautiful...nothing in my apartment needs immediate attention minus a brewing pot of pineapple papaya green tea and this blank computer screen. I think I can deal. I think I'm in love. I think I fall in love a little too easily. Nah. Love your life, right? I think so.

So, yeah, where was I going with this story? It was the last day of my job today. My life = a crux. I have been thinking about cruxes lately. (Like the last hour or so) 'Why?' I ask... Well that was the favorite subject matter of my old Asian American Psychologies' professor; he was pretty tough on me, but he made me a better person and a better writer. I wish I had his contact info to tell him that. But yeah, so cruxes-- its okay if you don't know what a crux is...I didn't. And if you do know what it is, well then cheers to you for being a smartie, I want to eat you. Anyway, to remind you- here is a definition pulled from the first website google shared.

Main Entry: crux
Pronunciation: \ˈkrəks, ˈkru̇ks\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural crux·es also cru·ces \ˈkrü-ˌsēz\
Etymology: Latin cruc-, crux cross, torture
Date: 1718
1 : a puzzling or difficult problem : an unsolved question
2 : an essential point requiring resolution or resolving an outcome
3 : a main or central feature (as of an argument)

Like the definition of 'crux' says it is usually a problem or a central feature of an argument (that is mostly how it was in my English class). We always had to read like 75 page articles and then come into class with the "crux" highlighted. What line of the piece best encapsulated the theme-the message-the problem-the main point-the crux? So usually since I was still kinda confused about it all, I just went with my gut. And it always amazed me how some 10 of us could go home, and for those of us who actually read or skimmed, or for some of us who still didn't really 'get' this cruxin' biznass could come back to class with the same line highlighted. To be realistic, I'm sure a lot of this outcome had to do with the writer and the way they wrote (and how most people write and rewrite their main points quite repetitively). Or perhaps the way our English literature centered minds were built over time. Regardless, really, it was quite cool to come in and come to the same conclusion, and to be able to identify the argument or question the piece was asking in a greater sense in one line. Being a woman of many words and little sense sometimes, I loved pinning it down to one line, just picking at the bare bones and meat. And it was cool that there was a 'right' answer too. (Its cool to have a point). But what was cooler was to be right with it. Like, yeah, I got it, I got what the author was saying. I know what is going on.

So why I reminisce about cruxes on a Saturday night is because I feel like I am really in limbo right now. Truly. I know I have felt this way a lot during my life time, and most of the time this "limbo" could be looked at in a more lost sense of the meaning. However, now I feel so far from being lost and I know my "limbo" is different this time. I am still in limbo, in transition but I am in a better place and I know what I want and who I am. I feel like I have come to a crux in my life or at least identified a crux, and because I have seen this theme over time and highlighted it, and feel right with it, I feel that I can finally move on with life and feel good and make some serious "progress." Just like in English class...hehe.

Not that anybody is interested, for the record though, here is what I have found at this crux point in my life. Lots of things that have been repeated over and over (but to put into one long run-on sentence, for my Prof's sake and old times)...staying in a work environment that did not feed my mind and my soul, surrounding myself with people that did not genuinely care about my well-being, loving people that were not ready to receive my love, loving people when I was not ready to realize the impact of that love and what it meant, and ignoring my craving to do things independently, and most important fully admitting and realizing that my perceived "difficult problems" and "unsolved questions" or "life struggle" isn't terribly dramatic or poor or worrisome, and that with a positive attitude and a smile and passion-- I can do anything I set my heart to.

Well, I am still feeling my confused feelings about the crux deal. However, I feel right and when I felt right in class I was right. I know my "essential point" "requiring a solution" has recently been resolved. So on with my life I go until I find the next crux. I'm looking forward to it.