Constant Craving
inspired by kd lang's "Constant Craving" suggest on Stories From The Jukebox for this week
Another big thank you to Stories From The Jukebox for this week’s suggestion. I’d never heard this song before and I do find it much harder to do a song I don’t know than one I’ve known for a whole.
Also this one would have been ready sooner but our new rescue dog decided to be very needy so we’ve just been rushing round the house playing chaseys! Very much our Willow saying she has Constant Cravings. She is now sound asleep with her head on my desk. Wish I could share a phone but …!
Constant Craving
It is always hard to explain to those who had decided there was a certain way to do things, Jody thought, as her Dad went off on one again, going on about how she needed to get good grades so she could go to university, so she could get a good job, a good bloke, a good house, and a good pension.
“So I can be miserable like you and mum and worrying all the time,” she’d retorted.
“You’ll thank us for our encouragement when you’re old,” he’d said as he took himself off to work in his shiny company car.
But Jodie could feel there had to be more than this. It was like someone was marching bravely in her skin trying to show her that this constant craving wasn’t a wasted thing. She did wonder though if it was just her youth or was there a wisdom in it that got lost as one aged.
She had an appointment with her school counsellor that afternoon. She would ask her. She liked Christie. She seemed to understand things. Though I suppose, Jodie smiled, that’s what she’s meant to be like.
Firstly they talked about the general things – grades, parents, friends – but then Jodie decided she couldn’t keep quiet any long, “Christie, I feel like there’s this great magnet pulling me towards the truth. My truth. But like it should be the truth of all souls, all people. Like we’ve got it all wrong. Like they’ve got it wrong. Like they know in their darkest places, through the thick and thin, that the wisdom they felt in their youth is true but they want to beat it out of us because they are so angry at not following the truth.”
Christie sat quietly for a moment. This is what Jodie liked about her. She didn’t jump in with answers but waited. Waited to see if there was more to say. Waited to process what had been said.
“It is like they’ve got this constant craving, that they’ve always had it, but that they hid from their truth, from our truth, and want to force us down that same dead end route,” Jodie continued.
Christie ran her tongue over her lips and looked Jodie in the eye. “So how are you going to support yourself as you chase this craving?”
Jodie felt herself go tense. Same old same old. Adult saying she needed a job. Next would come the lecture about grades, university and more.
Christie held a hand up. “Wait before you tear me off a strip. I totally hear you. I think I even understand this constant craving you have, this desire for more than what is offered. I am not saying it is wrong. What I am saying is that people will only believe you if you are supporting yourself. You can’t go and do whatever it is you feel you crave whilst sponging off your parents or the state.”
Jodie stared open-mouthed. She was being taken seriously. She was being given a plan.
“What is it you crave?” asked Christie. “Be totally honest with yourself”
“I’m not sure. I feel it here,” she said, placing her hand on her stomach. “All I know is that it isn’t good grades, a degree, a career. I don’t want to be tied to anything. I want to be free to explore. To explore me. To explore the world. I don’t want to be stuck like I see my parents being, like I see older friends being. It is so hard to say but I feel the truth of it somewhere in life itself.”
Christie nodded. “Yes I’m totally with you on this but you do need to get a job.”
Years and years later Jodie was visiting her parents for Christmas.
“This is the daughter we don’t understand,” her father joked as he introduced Jodie to a friend who’d popped in for Christmas drinks.
The friend smiled and asked, “So what do you do, Jodie, that stops your dad from understanding you?”
Jodie took a deep breath and said, “I’ve not got a career. I don’t want one. I realised a long time ago that I wanted was enough money to be able to travel, to have enough to eat and to live in a safe place. I don’t want to be tied into having to pursue a career, to climb that ladder and then find it was on the wrong wall all along. I’ve seen my mum and dad in their golden handcuffs holding out in jobs they tolerate until they have enough to retire. I didn’t want that. So I work a bit, travel a bit. I’ve no children and no long term relationships. And you know I can honestly say I am contented.”
The friend smiled. Something marching bravely beneath Jodie’s skin told her she would be friends with this woman for a long time to come. The constant craving had found a kindred spirit.
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I see myself and my daughter here, albeit a mirrored version. I feel as though she's giving up, and settling because she sees others around her that seem to know what they want. So she's in a hurry. But I'm telling her there's plenty of time to decide on a career. There's a whole world out there! The thing is I recognize the look in her eyes, she's always had her father's wonder lust. But I think she's afraid to trust it, and in that I have failed her.
This is a great story Diane!
This is a good philosophy.