General Discussion Board
Something special
Posted By: Les <LesToil500@aol.com> (152.163.197.79)
Date: Wednesday, 22 March 2000, at 5:53 p.m.I'd like to kindly ask my fellow Abby posters to take a moment and read an email I was sent a few nights ago. As a matter of fact the email was sent to me by one of our very own friends here. She gave me permission to publish her entire email on my site...which I did, on her Toil Girl page (the link is below). Since she's allowing anyone with access to the internet to view these very personal feelings of her's and she was even kind enough to allow me to mention it all here.
And lastly, please, please PLEASE don't think I'm sharing this link as a way of proving how the work of Les Toil can move mountains, part seas and lower gas prices. As a matter of fact, I'm as fed up with Toily topics as I'm sure you all are. Hopefully you'll agree that her words have the whole world to do with hope, and little to do with my art.
And btw, you can ignore anything written after her letter.
Les
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hi les:)
i just wanted to drop you a line....ive got a bit to say ..lol.. so bear..or is that bare with me...
i wanted you to know..what your art work has meant to me....as i have said many times to you, i wish i could look as good in real life as i do in my artwork that you did...you know the only thing not realistic about that art was the bod...the face nailed me as you know..and well..as you also may or may not know i am on a journey..regaining my life..which to me means dropping all those pounds that i gained due to sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse..years and years! but for some reason i could never actually picture myself in an attractive way..ever..i know you can tell by the things i've said to you that sometimes i have a very poor perception of what i actually look like. that when i look in the mirror i dont see anything that other's do! and no matter how hard i try, sometimes its so hard to muddle through all those years of pain to see who i really am...well..i always believe things happen for a reason. that karma sets in and situations line up for a larger purpose....so here we go...when i first discussed with you about getting the art work done i was fine. still going through the surgeries and all that and being all depressed and trying to make it through each day...a quarter of my breast was already gone, but you couldn't tell in pics i know..and even tho it was deformed from the cutting it was still something to hold on to..at least something was there....but even then..that little bit missing made me just want to curl up in a ball in the furtherst corner of my dark closet and never seek intimacy or a meaningful relationship..or..ever accept myself like that...i couldn't visualize what the future would hold for me if i didnt have that fuckin breast...for me that was always like my trump card...you know hey i'm fat..but look at these..ya know and big as they were it was always the kicker...but looking back that really didnt allow me to find those who looked at my heart and not my body...anyway..about the time i was ready to pay you for the work ..i had to go in for the emergency masectomy..this was the final straw..if this didn't rid the infection then it would either kill me or i would continue my life having more and more.....and most likely gaining and gaining..trying to bury my grief and depression under mounds and mounds of fat...so..as you know i couldn't pay you and i had to hold off...after the surgery..and i woke up actually feeling alive for the first time in a very very long time....i know it had to be because all the infection that had ravaged my body for 2 years was finally GONE!..i began to see things with a little more clarity...i realized with a startling shock that there was more to my ownself than the physical me..that i had to start inside loving myself before i could do anything...that the weight was a way of hiding myself from those that hurt me...and that in the midst of all that i lost who i really was..i woke up finally...and started getting things back on track, realizing life is way too short for all this crap i was carrying around with me...in the process..i was like shaving a dollar here..a dollar there from paychecks and doc's bills and the like...skrimping and saving....i was ready to pay you for the art work..when i saw it..it was like an explosion in my head! it hit me...even tho it's what some would call a cartoon..and i know that makes you flinch and some have been banished forever for using that term lol..but there it was! in a flash..the me that i have been trying to visualize all this time..to get back to me...the me i want to be...underneath all of this..it gave me a visual "goal" to focus on..the me that is buried under all this pain induced fat.. ..a thinner..smoothed down if you will..and too...with both breasts..which when this is all said and done..if i feel like having 2 again i will..but whats important right now to me is regaining my health, my self assurance, my self confidence and my self love..so in essence of all this rambling...i would like to thank you..thank you for your kindness..for you listening..for your ability to always make me smile...for that piece of art that you have no idea in the world what it did for me..if i could give you just a tiny little glimpse into my heart..to let you feel it..see it..so you could know....my gratitude..i took that art and printed it on a page size magnet and its up on my fridge ..its a reminder of what im working towards..and well, i just wanted to thank you for giving life to the little seed of what i couldn't quite see...
thank you:)
Staci
Post script from Les:
Staci's words were not originally meant to be published here on my site. They were meant for my eyes only in an email I recieved from her one night. I'd like to thank her from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to share such intimacies with those that can relate...which I suppose would be all of us.
I'd also like to thank her for the single best compliment I've ever received about my art.
