Better late than never…

Well, this is me, Sorry if I have disappointed. I actually started and stopped a couple of blogs. I stopped them before finishing. One is sitting in front of me. It has… about 750 words written. I started it and stopped it and started again but it was just really, really difficult to do because I simply hate having to talk about unhappy things over and over and over. I mean, talking about my situation with Anya and her mother is never a happy thought. It just wears you down and down and down.

As of this moment, it is already Thursday at about 12:00 and I am waiting on some students. And Anya, as far as I can see, has again not been out of the house for two weeks. She did tell me on Tuesday that she had gone to the beach the day before with her mother. But when I asked her if she had played with any friends or saw anybody interesting, all she said was that she had seen Liza, but that of course was only when she was with me. Other than that, she sits inside in front of the TV and watches the sun travel across the sky alone.

I don’t like this situation and I don’t like what has become of my daughter. I honestly believe that this is torture. And I really and truly do not understand why all of this has been necessary. And I will never understand Tanya.

I will tell you the truth, I made a promise to the woman. When we reached the end of our road, and really, I guess this is three years ago already, it was just a matter that I couldn’t take her personality. I just have a basic disagreement on what is important in life and what is not. This is not to say that I am good and she is bad. It is not a question like that. It is just that I prefer a more social and active life. I believe in using one’s mind and believe in trying to keep one’s body reasonably healthy. Tanya just has her own way of living and it… it is simply not what I want and was nothing I could live with. She just made it so that I couldn’t do the things I had to do here to get by. She just simply takes too much energy and makes life too difficult. And she doesn’t just do this to me, she also does it to her son and, she is currently ruining her daughter, my daughter.

But I did make her a promise that my leaving her was not for another woman or anything like that. I just needed more space to breathe and recuperate from my long days and her constant harassment was not helping. I told her I would pay for everything and just to leave me and my time with Anya alone and other than that, she was free to do what she wanted. But of course the curse of the liar is that when you are yourself a liar, you can never actually believe anybody else and, almost immediately, she began her war.

I don’t really blame her though because here, she is not really all that unique. I have come to understand over the last three years that she also has what you might say is the curse of the Soviet Union. That is to say that she comes from a time and a place when everybody got the same money and everybody got a paycheck and nothing moved; everything was still and without sounding too misogynistic about it, a crazy woman who only breaks things was probably seen as a break from the boredom. In other words, if you haven’t got anything important to do, ever, except to go on, and if life sort of reeks of stagnancy and boredom, then of course someone who tends to continually go ballistic and hysterical, who shatters pictures and breaks guitars, well, she might just keep you on your toes enough to make even life in Pinsk seem interesting. And of course in her own eyes, she is a “real” woman because she holds down exactly such a role. So I think I am reasonable in my speaking here.

And if we were really still in that case, and if there were no responsibilities and all there was to do was sit by passively, not rock anybody’s boat and wait for your government check, it would make sense. And of course it is possible to live your life inside someone’s emotions. But this is not the Soviet Union despite what the president says and really, there are working women, women who have businesses, professional women and female officials and specialists here. There are lots of great and talented and beautiful women out here. There are beautiful women everywhere! And yes, there are women whose sole purpose is to be beautiful – and this is even amongst the professionals when the idea of what is beautiful manifests itself in ambition or, oh please, pride of accomplishment. In fact I really don’t even want to argue about the importance of simple physical beauty because obviously people still buy playboy magazine. Of course men like looking at attractive woman and people not only like having beauty in their lives, they need it. It is a respite, a relief. So really, nobody is saying no to women.

But the idea that beauty goes beyond the skin is what I am talking about. The idea is that a beautiful woman should be someone who is beautiful inside as well as what she shows the world via her clothes, hair and the curve of her hips and breasts. A really beautiful woman has form and substance; she's the real deal and not just a hustle. Because really, when you talk about who is the most beautiful woman you have ever met, you are most probably talking about someone who really inspired love. And real love, real passion does not come strictly from visual stimulus. To really be inspired by someone, you also have to see how they are with their family and friends because true beauty only comes when you don’t just care about yourself but also about other people. Someone who looks after people they are close to and who makes the world better because they are in it is, or at least should be, the definition of beautiful.

And I am sorry, but this is simply not Tanya. This is not Anya’s mother. And this is the basic problem. She doesn’t care. And this business has evolved from her lying to create a picture for the courts to an ongoing masquerade in which she actually tortures the girl into denying her feelings and what she believes to be the truth. And this is an act which of course, is ruining the girl's heart, mind and of course her future in the process. Tanya is really good at breaking shit.

At first we had this licked and the first four times we sat before a judge, logic and truth prevailed. But then Tanya somehow managed to find a specific judge who refused to hear evidence or listen to arguments or witnesses and this gave her the rights to do whatever she wanted. This of course specifically meant that she could do whatever she wanted to me. And, of course Anya as well. You don't want to make Tanya mad is the lesson. And this is exactly why Anya is locked away in solitary confinement: When her mom let her out to play, she committed the heinous crime of visiting her father and hanging out here. She had to be punished for the crime of actually liking her father's company. She has to be retaught, reprogrammed. And Tanya is determined. Father-ism must be stamped out as an affront to the regime. There will be stability. But like I have always said, Anya is cool as hell. She knew, when she actually succeeded in getting out for a while that she had to come to the window of my office and not the front door because that was the only place that was not within her mother's line of sight. She knew Tanya would be watching from her window. But my six year knows what's going down. She's learned her lessons. She thinks of how to get shit past the bulls. She can figure out the angles. She knows how to get along in prison.

Hey, it's 1984 Winston. And thanks for your help in bringing the girl up right, Tanya.

Anyway, all Hindenburg humanity aside, Anya's mother has continued to carry on, out of spite, selfishness, a quest for free money or just because she can't figure out what else to do with her monumental amount of free time. And she has continued beating everyone either because she cannot see the damages she has caused or, Tanya being Tanya, because she can.

So I am still working on it. Tomorrow I will write my final arguments for the court. I will most probably publish those here. And really, it is all just so much bullshit. This whole situation is living off of my energy here, and the girl’s. Everyone’s but Tanya’s. Only not hers. We are fighting over my caring and over my desire to be with my daughter and to help her grow up, not hers. I just want Anya to be able to respect herself and to have wide choices in the world. This is all I want and all I have ever tried to do. And Anya’s mother’s only fight, and maybe even the town of Pinsk’s, has been to try and prevent this from happening. And this is why we have to go to court. If you understand it, please explain it to me.

So sorry for the delay. I will try to be more reasonable in the future.

More soon...