Daily Prompt – Trick Questions

A Pulitzer-winning reporter is writing an in-depth piece – about you. What are the three questions you really hope she doesn’t ask you?

Well, first and foremost, I wouldn’t want to be asked about any type of politics… especially foreign politics. I loathe politics, and most certainly don’t like talking about our own country’s political climate, let alone any other countries.

Apr 18: So Much Guilt

Talk about a time when you’ve felt a lot of guilt.

Why is it that lately I’m starting to feel more guilty because I’m choosing not to be completely honest about some of the major instances from my life, instead, opting to share only those that I actually feel comfortable sharing?? It’s because of these damn prompts!

On that note, allow me to focus on something that I’ve actually felt guilty about for a while now… telling my brother that he’s adopted.

My brother is five years younger than I am, and when we were younger, I began to tell him that he was adopted. It was usually mentioned whenever he and I were fighting, or when people were commenting on how completely different we are – and I’m talking complete opposites! So I’d make snide comments about the reason we’re so different is because he’s adopted, and he would get so incredibly upset and just start bawling, ‘SHUT UP, SHUT UP!! I’M NOT ADOPTED! YOU’RE LYING!! YOU’RE SO MEAN TO ME’, and that was the sign that I’d taken it to far. I’d try and apologise to him, but it’s hard to try and apologise to somebody and come across as being sincere when you’re trying to stop laughing long enough to get an actual sentence out.

In all fairness though, even my mother would have a little giggle whenever my brother would run off crying because of me being such a bastard! Granted, it wasn’t every time, but she did laugh, so I’m not the only one here to blame. I think she can take some of the responsibility as well.

Since moving to Melbourne, my brother and I pretty much lost touch with each other. I kind of know what he’s up to through Facebook, but other than that, we don’t reach out to contact each other. It’s something that actually makes me feel quite bad, that I have somebody like my own brother, and yet, I don’t really know anything about him, because we never speak. He literally is the complete opposite of me – we have absolutely nothing in common except our parents, and even then, I only acknowledge having one parent. I refer to mum’s ex-husband as ‘my brother’s father’ for a multitude of reasons, but my brother keeps in regular contact with his father, and his father’s side of the family, whereas I have purposefully ex-communicated myself from all of them, and I’ve never been happier.

I feel guilty that my brother and I have nothing in common. I feel guilty that we don’t speak. I feel guilty that we never see each other. The last time I saw my brother was two years ago when I had to fly interstate for a few hours for my grandmothers funeral. Before that, we hadn’t seen each other for a few years. Now we live at completely opposite ends of the east coast of Australia. I want to be able to even just Skype with him and his, now, fiancee, but even then I just struggle to comprehend how that conversation would go. He’s never been able to have a conversation with anybody. Like, NEVER. He would go and visit his father during school holidays and I’d speak to him when mum called, and all you would ever get out of him were one-worded answers. ‘Yep. Fine. Good. Nope. Alright. Hot. Yep. I think so. Maybe. Not yet. Yep. Yep. Nup. Yep. I guess so.’ It was just a constant string of questions. He was never forthcoming with information, and would never actually go into detail. You’d ask him how his trip up there was. Good. What did you do on the train? Nothing. Did you play your gameboy? Yep. Which games did you play? Dunno. Did you play Mario Brothers? Yep. What level did you get up to? Dunno?

So by this stage, I’m ready to start bashing my head against the wall. Even two years ago when he picked me up from the airport, after not seeing each other for I-don’t-even-know how many years, it was still the exact same conversation. Everything was a question, and I only got the same simple answers. Knowing that I’d have a 30-40minute drive of this was enough to make me want to just turn around and come home again. It was just painful.

I don’t know what he’s like with Mum, or even his fiancee, but even the couple of times I’ve spoken to her, she was pretty much the same… although she was at least able to construct a sentence and elaborate a lot better than my brother seems to be able to.

Hmmm, perhaps I should change that, and see if they have Skype? Make a positive change, and put have more of an interaction with my brother?

Speaking of which… I still haven’t received a wedding invitation…!! I guess that speaks volumes. Ironic, really.

Perhaps this is the payback for all those years of tormenting him and saying he was adopted?

Apr 8 – Keep It Private

Are there some scandals that you wish you didn’t know about?

I think that when it comes to the private lives of other people – regardless of who they are, their status, their fame etc, it should be kept private. I really don’t like the way the media will take something personal and painful between two people, and then parade it around all over the news, on front covers of papers and magazines, and all over the internet as some kind of story.

I think that’s just plain mean.

Have you ever gone through something such a relationship breakup / divorce? Or perhaps something quite painful and personal? Yes? Now imagine if somebody took all those painful moments and details, and broadcast it to every single person that you knew. Your friends, your family, your coworkers etc. How horrible would that make you feel?? One of the things that I absolutely cannot stand is when people start airing other people’s dirty laundry – it’s just so… vindictive. However, god help anybody who dares try and air any of my dirty laundry, I will rip them apart piece by piece.

Apart from that, there are a lot of scandals that I just don’t care about. None of them interest me, nor do they affect me in any way, shape or form, so why should I concern myself with other people’s problems? That sounds somewhat selfish, but it’s true. If it has absolutely nothing to do with me, why would I want to invest my time into reading about it, or watching reports about it on the news.

I just don’t care. Granted, if it was something that was going to affect people’s health (like the Horsemeat scandal) then that’s a different story. I used to shop at Aldi, so in that aspect, I’m involved as a consumer.