Court date…

Well, its 8:00 in the morning on Friday. And I wouldn’t actually say I have a busy day planned for today but I have some things to do and a lot of it I am looking forward to. The really looking forward to day though is tomorrow. Tomorrow is Saturday and Saturday is the day I have with Anya. Last week was not such a good day. Usually, we have very dynamic Saturdays. We do a lot of things. We ride our bicycles together. But last Saturday, what with the foot situation, it was pretty slow. It was also raining so we hardly even went out. Earlier we regularly went to the music school on Saturdays to practice piano but the situation has us sort of off piano at the very moment. In the wintertime of course we go sledding. Basically, everything that you have seen in the movies is what we do. Saturdays are active and we go to a lot of places and of course Anya likes movies so we always end up here at the end of the day watching something on the computer or we head over to the movie theatre if there should be something interesting or wonderful there. I love Saturdays. Saturdays are the day that I basically live for.

One reason why this Saturday has become so important really is because of a court decision from about 2 years ago which limits the time that is allowed me by the court to only two days a week. I am not happy about this. I have never been happy about this decision and in fact I really think it was an absolute crime. The many, many details about this situation, though I feel confident that given a proper reason to do so, I could probably make a wonderful list explaining all of the individual nuances of this idiot situation as clearly as possible. I have to do an abridged version of this for the court which is why this is the subject today. But at the moment I don’t really think that going into all of the details this fits into this little piece of writing.

The court date is in about 10 days but I have been waiting ten months for this one day. I honestly don’t know why it needed 10 months to decide the question if I could spend more time with my daughter. I don’t know why it was a big request. I understand Tanya’s perpetual negativity. This is a given. And I understand that there is a certain amount of reasonable time needed for justice. But I don’t understand why there have been three major long term delays and why, and it’s obvious, that they have been dragging out the court proceedings to the longest extent possible. We actually seemed to have it settled several months ago but then someone suggested that we needed a psychologists opinion on top of all that was on the desk and this deal, adamantly advised by the guy who was supposedly acting as my attorney, added another four months. Why? Why was this necessary? The case itself must seem obvious. And it is so obvious and on so many different levels that I am without understanding why we have gone this long. And of course Anya suffers.

Anyway, about 10 days from now we are going to be back in court and we are going to be talking about who has the rights and the time with Anya in her life. Basically, I want to be the principle guide for her young life. I want this because I am good at it, Tanya is not good at this, and because the things that I do for her life, enrich her and bring her happiness. I offer a wider and more agreeable future. I believe there are better chances for the possibility of prosperity in her future. Certainly my lessons would have her in better and more interesting social and academic situations. I know this. And I don’t care about Tanya’s feelings. This is not and has never been about Tanya or me. It was always, only supposed to be about the girl. And this is one thing that woman has never figured out.

I do not believe that we own our children. I don’t see them as possessions. I believe that children are our responsibility and having made them, it is our job to help them to become better than we were. Our real job is to help our children learn from our mistakes and to do the things that we would do over again if we could. Well, our children are that chance to do better than we did and I do teach my daughter the good lessons because I do love my daughter.

And she and I have learned an amazing amount of things. I wouldn’t say that she is a world class pianist, but she can play the piano with two hands and she can get a song out when she puts her mind to it. I wouldn’t say she has the most dynamic mind in the world, but given a chance not to be tortured for a while, she has shown that she has the eyes and presence of mind of an engineer or a doctor. She is not the world’s greatest athlete, but if not locked in solitary confinement she has already learned to ride her bike and we can go all over town like it was nothing. She used to, when she was with me all the time, hang out with my classes and, because she wasn’t under constant threat and emotional abuse, was capable enough to do the English along with the 15 year old students without problem. She also knew more words than some of them. And though her ability to read English has been stifled over the last two years (according to Tanya, and this was said in court, she doesn’t even speak English.) she does understand everything I say and all of the movies we have seen in English and can certainly speak better than any other Belarusian 6 year old. I would bet money on that!

This is a big deal. I hate this. I really do. I really and truly love my daughter and I thank g-d that she was given to me. I have been waiting a hell of a long time for this insanity to end. I asked for this court date even before I got back from New York. And for some reason I can’t understand, it has taken another 10 months to get here. And so now, I am thinking about what else I have to do to prepare for that date. I have my evidences and my witnesses. I have what I am going to say already am written. I have the films prepared and the text messages in order. All of the things that show simply that Tanya lied to everyone, that her games have harmed that poor girl’s life and that allowing her to have prime responsibility for the child has been the greatest mistake possible for the girl's life. I know I have to trust that this judge is not like the one that set this hell up. And I know I have to trust him to be a good man and to do the right thing. But it is hard. It’s really hard. And this has been sitting on my shoulders like two elephants holding boxes of rocks. I really need this to work out for me. And I know that Anya does to.