‘I never get to go anywhere,’ I sulked and sat at the table making out I was deeply offended. I probably would have been if it weren’t for the idea of my first game of basketball and getting to know my new friends better. Still, I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to make Dad feel bad.

‘Well, I could get tickets to see Adelaide Lightning play the Sydney Uni Flames next week, if that makes you feel better?’ Dad said, looking pleased with himself.

‘It’s not New Zealand, though, is it?’ I said. ‘And I haven’t travelled overseas since Covid hit.’

‘I was thinking it might be a good way to get you revved up for the basketball season,’ Dad said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Give it some thought. Anyway, I was thinking about watching something on TV after dinner tonight. Anyone got any ideas?’

Caitlin hardly watched anything apart from a gardening show and an American hippie current affairs show. Dad and I loved nothing better than a good doco or film.

‘What do you want to watch?’ Dad asked Caitlin, sitting forwards in his chair. I knew he had a suggestion on the tip of his tongue.

‘Nothing too heavy, maybe something a little funny and interesting,’ Caitlin said.

‘I know the perfect thing,’ Dad declared.

After dinner, we all cleared up like a happy little family, me thinking about the possibility of going to watch Adelaide Lightning play. It’d been ages since I’d seen a women’s basketball game.

I kicked back in an armchair and Dad flicked on a show from Netflix. The doco was called Happy. As a media studies lecturer, Dad was always introducing me to good stuff, like classic Aboriginal films, docos and music. Unfortunately, this doco had nothing to do with blackfellas. It started with a man talking about how he wanted to study happiness, what made people happy, and how his colleagues told him that he couldn’t study happiness. He pointed out that they were studying depression and then he set off to see what made people from different cultures and backgrounds around the world happy.

As a cool breeze moved over me, I thought about how low I had been feeling and decided to give the doco a go. I was really trying to be happy, to stay on top of things, even though it felt like I was trying to swim through freshly poured cement.

To cut a long story short, the fella doing the research found out that there were a few things that made people happy, like shelter, having positive things to do, exercise and connection with others.

It was kind of making me depressed, seeing all of these people being happy. People in countries like India, where one couple had seven kids and only a piece of plastic over their heads as a shelter.