Happiness Where You Can Find It

Prepare yourself as my inner nerd is about to appear.

 What is one thing I really enjoy doing? Filling out forms and answering questionnaires. Yep. I love my forms (unless it's Centrelink) Census is upon us here in Australia for August. This brought back memories. I've found, increasingly, since I began therapy for the PTSD, I'm recalling memories which are not trauma. It's quite exciting, but also feels a little strange. A more "What is this?" fascination for me. 

Anyway, so the topic of census looming came up and I remembered when I was a kid how excited I would be by census date. Of course crushing disappointment would follow the initial excitement when I was told I couldn't fill it out because I was obviously too young. Before I understood what census was all I knew was the night was special. Everyone had to be at home, my parents would get together and fill out this form for what felt like ages with an air of importance. To me it was a special occasion, an event, with excitement in the air.

I also felt this when I was admitted to hospital or a parent played hooky from work.

Then one day I was allowed to fill out the forms! This is what I remember the most, after begging my parents every time, I was finally old enough to fill it out. With their help of course. This only added to the fanfare in my eyes. I got attention, I got to fill out forms, I got to take part in the special occasion. 

And then of course some shitty memories follow because my trauma brain is always lurking, but at least the first of the memory chain was something that made me happy. I remember those feelings as a child. Usually all I remember is sadness, fear, anger, disappointment, and being hurt so it's a nice change even though it's about filling in forms.

I'll acknowledge I was a little weirdo too. Between the forms, befriending insects, making up ghost stories, singing my sentences to myself, collecting all the things, and obsessively watching The Neverending Story over and over, obviously I was trying to find excitement and happiness where I could. Weirdo, or just creative?