Eve Ensler: What disappointment has stayed with you longest? — FLAPSS

The question

What disappointment has stayed with you longest?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

EE

Eve Ensler

American playwright, performer, feminist, and activist

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

That most men have not yet come to understand the impact and the devastating consequences of violence against women.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2019 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 367 →

Not going to the World Cup in 1986 and not going to the World Cup in 1998.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 November 2024 source ↗

Kiell Smith-Bynoe

Realising what adulthood is after waiting so long to get here.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 August 2023 source ↗

Gloria Estefan Cuban-American singer and songwriter

Not yet being able to sing in a free Cuba.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 June 2019 source ↗

Joan Jett American singer, songwriter and guitarist

That my baseball team, Baltimore Orioles, is always in the basement.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 November 2020 source ↗

More from Eve Ensler

View profile →

Question How close have you come to dying? Death & what remains

Nine years ago I discovered I had stage 3/4 uterine cancer and went through nine months of excruciating surgery, illness and chemotherapy. In that time, I touched death and it was the most powerful transformation of my life. I was forced to learn to take care of my body.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2019 source ↗

Question What one change would most improve the quality of your daily life? Daily life

Going off all technology.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2019 source ↗

Question What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy? Time & hindsight

In my 60s. So many things that tortured me when I was younger have fallen away. Writing The Apology, the letter I wrote in my father’s voice, apologising for abusing me, has freed me from the last vestiges of anger, confusion, rancour and hate. It released me from a frame that had determined my life.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2019 source ↗

Question How would you want people to remember you? Death & what remains

As being useful.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2019 source ↗

Question If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? Failure & regret

I would have honoured my body, I would have lived inside it, cherished it and protected it.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 June 2019 source ↗

More on failure & regret

Also answered this

Jacqueline Wilson, Joanna Scanlan, Donna Tartt, Fran Lebowitz, Jo Nesbø, Andrew O'Hagan

Search the directory for somebody in particular.

Explore further

All failure & regret questions
The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject

Report this answer