Annika

Annika’s unhappiness in Tahoe, without any strong reliable friends to lean on after having returned from Salzburg in September, has lingered incessantly. She’s asked…begged even…to return to Salzburg, to Maria.

And so it is. She’ll be flying to Munich today, with Maria’s Mom essentially both adopting Annika and the parental responsibilities, where Annika will remain until…February? March? Always?

There is a lot to unpack here.

Annika’s lack of a best friend(s) in Tahoe has been a consistent theme; I don’t have an explanation.

Maybe it’s due to rural Tahoe, where kids have non-stop time-intensive seasonal activities (skiing [downhill or nordic]…soccer…dance…). Unless your “friends” do all the exact same activities as you, chances are you go from intense time together to no time together on this seasonal basis. It’s not obvious to me if Annika is the exception or the rule; whether she’s the lone wolf without any great friends, or whether none of them have a cohort of close friends to lean on.

Maybe it’s due to gymnastics; Annika adopted a sport that no one else in Tahoe City did, a sport that year after year increased in required investment of time, a sport that culminated with Annika out there…alone…such that when she stopped gymnastics and said goodbye to her gymnastics friends, there was no one for her to fall back on in Tahoe.

Maybe it’s cultural…having spent a year in Austria at a impressonable age (16-17 years old), maybe Annika matured more quickly than her Tahoe friends, to the point that she’s not able to bond with them in a new way.

Maybe it’s Annika. I don’t think so, but I don’t know….it’s likely a little bit of everything.

Annika has spent the last ~6 weeks working on her college applications, espousing her strengths, leveraging Salzburg as her beacon (didn’t know anyone, broke out of my comfort zone, happy endings). What Annika hasn’t comprehended is that what she’s most proud of from her time in Salzburg – making friends, fitting it, acclimating – she has utterly failed to do here in Tahoe. Maybe that’s not all on her – again, I don’t know. But from my perspective it doesn’t look like she’s tried much at all – like she’s in a ditch, and rather than ask for help to dig herself out or to figure it out herself she simply insists on staying in the ditch, miserable and disempowered. By going to Salzburg she’s running away from the problem, and we are facilitating it. But at some point I do have to worry about her mental health, and whether remaining in Tahoe does irreparable damage. My concern is that if things in Salzburg don’t turn out as she expects (needs), her options are two: descend even further into sadness and disappointment; or return to Tahoe more motivated to make it work, make the best of it.

I’m reminded of a moment I had with my Cisco boss, sometime around 2007. I was in San Jose for a visit; my boss also has 3 daughters. In his office he shares that his eldest was leaving soon for college, and I – the parent of an amazing ~4 year old Annika – was almost in tears, literally, trying to imagine saying goodbye to Annika. My boss Bob – a great guy, no bravado – was ambivalent. I didn’t see it then, but if he was like I am now – beat down, exasperated, ignored, unappreciated – it’s no wonder he was ambivalent.

In fact, it’s worse than ambivalent for me.

On Thursday Niki, Britta, Annika and I started on a hike from the house. Keep in mind that the previous night, while taking Niki and Britta to bed, Annika ducks her head in to say goodnight just as Niki and Britta were crying due to the realization that Annika was leaving to Salzburg. So Annika is aware she’s leaving, aware that it takes a toll on her sisters. But she’s also 17, a bit narcissistic…anyway, 5 minutes into the hike, when Annika realizes our intent is to hike around the meadows (a ~1 hour hike), she replies that she’ll take the very short route as she wants to go to Squaw.

Keep in mind that she’s not going to ski at Squaw …she’s not meeting any friends at Squaw…she’s just…going to Squaw, to burn time, so rather than spend another 50 minutes with her family she’d rather hurry to Squaw to…wander, aimlessly. She’s in that ditch and can’t be bothered.

She’s not. really. here. Already gone.

And it occurs to me…I want her to leave. I want her bad funk out of the house, away from Niki and Britta. I haven’t had a quality few hours with Annika in over a year, so while I’m literally saying goodbye to her on Saturday, figuratively speaking we said goodbye over a year ago. Andrea is heartbroken, understandably, as she receives authentic hugs in the morning and evening from Annika; Andrea is on the receiving end of laughs, conversation, moments – not all the time, but what I wouldn’t give…

People say – joke? – that teenagers treat their parents like crap in order to ease the separation. Maybe so; but this is just…disheartening. The teenage years are a waste of time, a wasted opportunity, it lacks humility…and worst of all, it’s so far removed from the beautiful and sincere young person that I used to know.

Certainly, obviously, I hope that Annika finds herself again once back in Salzburg. I want her to return to being mindful, being happy, being engaged. I want her to figure out what she wants (college, career, aspirations) and have the motivation and ambition to pursue it – and succeed. She is entirely capable of that, I believe. Hope.

The joy of being the father of a teenager.

Middle of June Niki and Britta have their last soccer match at a weekend tournament in South Lake Tahoe. We intend to camp overnight, and Annika doesn’t want to go so we agree that she can stay home with the dogs.

While down there on Saturday Andrea tells me that Annika has asked if she can go to Kate’s for the evening (to be clear: I don’t receive any of these texts, they are all between Andrea and Annika). Andrea tells me she thinks it’s OK but that she wants Annika home by 11; I agree that sounds fair.

At midnight Andrea receives a call from Rob Gaffney, explaining that Annika is at their house, passed out in the bathroom after having vomited. Andrea is upset and very angry, which sounds right to me. We drive home to pick up Annika, and Andrea drops me off at the house to get the Subaru while Andrea returns back to South Lake Tahoe with Niki and Britta who are still (mostly) sleeping.

[As an aside it’s on the trip home that Andrea and I talk about Annika and I mention that I’m confident that I’m being lied to about a number of things; after insisting 3 times during this discussion that Annika did not sleep at Dom’s after the Prom Andrea suddenly admits that Annika did in fact spend the night. Andrea doesn’t apologize for the deception, and doesn’t explain herself. In fact she detoured to a classic what-a-bout-ism saying that this is no different when I don’t tell her about investment decisions I act on.  In the amoral world that Andrea lives in everything is on the same ethical plane, everything can be excused, and – most of all – Andrea is never at fault.]

I retrieve Annika from the Gaffney’s, return home and put her to bed. I explain to her that I’m going to look at her phone, to see how tonight played out because at this point I’m assuming Annika was supposed to be home at 11 and she deceived both Andrea and I.

I find this.

“I will not tell papa”. Andrea agreed that Annika could spend the night, and purposely didn’t tell me.

So not only did Andrea not confess on the drive home (when I commented that I was confident I was being lied to) that she had agreed (despite our earlier agreement that Annika would be home by 11) to letting Annika spend the night…but she actually confided in Annika that the two of them would deceive me.

This is just stunning. How many Mother’s teach their children, directly, not only how to lie but demonstrate that it’s OK to do this to a father/spouse? Andrea is a minority in this regard.

This is what the lack of moral integrity looks like, passing on to next of kin.

I subsequently have talks with Annika (and Andrea, although I’m really only talking to Annika to save her from her Mom’s amoral living habits) about the importance of honesty; it’s eroding affect on trust; and (by the way) drinking.

Sigh.

Annika went to her first Prom, as a sophomore, in a whirlwind weekend.

She drove to Las Vegas on Thursday with her Track team for the State finals (scored personal bests in 4×100, 4×200, and triple jump!); then flew to Oakland on Saturday where Dom, her date, picked her up and would bring her back to her parents house to get ready. The Prom was in San Francisco (possibly at some Hotel, Annika wasn’t sure), so Dom’s older sister drove them there and back.

While I had some trepidation – Dom is a Senior, I’ve never met him and he never bothered to call me to introduce himself – Annika justified her going (she REALLY wanted to, it wouldn’t interfere with track, she would get a cheap plane ticket, Andrea had met him before at Squaw [Dom and Annika met as both are Junior ski instructors], etc) so I agreed.

It got odd from there.

What I would have expected, under normal circumstances, is that any conversations about the weekend would be between Andrea, Annika and I. Instead, as I see Annika so (very) little now that she drives (even Niki and Britta lament that it feels like she’s not in our family any longer), I hear details (really, decisions made without me in the loop) about the weekend from Andrea at random times. My input or thoughts are never solicited, and my only parting advice is to not let Dom drive if he has been drinking. Fair enough, right?

On Saturday, Prom day, Annika is texting the entire day (at track, to the airport, at the airport, in Oakland, etc), which is all good. But she only texts Andrea – a small and insignificant detail, but consistent with how things are going specific to leaving me out of the loop. The plan, as I’m told, is that Andrea will drive down to the Bay Area Saturday evening to pick up Annika after the Prom, then they spend the night at my Dad’s in Benicia.

Andrea leaves for the Bay, and I don’t get any texts that night or Sunday morning; the first I hear from them is Sunday at 2:42PM, on their way home. I certainly could have (and likely should have) texted either Andrea or Annika (or both) before that, but I was busy with Niki and Britta at a soccer tournament in Carson City, and didn’t want to be a doting parent (“Did you have fun??”).

They get home to Tahoe Sunday night and I literally don’t see Annika; she goes right to her bedroom, takes a shower, hangs out, whatever. I go down to ask her to come up at some point and tell us all about her weekend, and later Niki and Britta do the same, to no avail. Finally I go downstairs and ask a few basic questions, aware that my questions are not appreciated, and as she is tired we agree to talk more in the morning. I’m just excited to hear how her entire weekend went.

All that is normal, in terms of Annika the teenager. Disengaged with the family, reluctant to say much, and generally impatient with me. I’ve gotten used to it.

Andrea tells me about the time with my Dad; while she doesn’t go into details about picking Annika up, she and Annika (later) both indicate that they slept in the same bed at my Dad’s (one of his spare bedrooms is empty of furniture), and they didn’t have breakfast with him (which seems odd). Details are sparse from both of them, which is also odd.

Here is what actually happened: Annika spent the night with Dom in Walnut Creek (I really know nothing more than that; I don’t know where, who else, when, zilch. I can’t ask because both are already committed to the lie, the illusion that Annika slept at my Dad’s). Andrea picked her up sometime on Sunday.

Here is what is really, really, disappointing and troubling.

Throughout our marriage Andrea has been consistently deceptive, about things both (very) big and (very) small; even worse, she’s shown no capability for guilt, remorse, or reflection on the damage done. This broken moral compass (my view) is who she is, nurtured as a teenager by an emotionally abusive (I can’t speak to the degree) Mom and emotionally absent Dad. When they said “no”, Andrea said (to herself) “I’ll do it anyway”. Deception became the normal resistant reaction.

What I never expected is that Andrea would both tolerate, and participate, in deception on Annika’s part. It’s heartbreaking: one important task of parenting is to teach (and demonstrate) morality, ethics, right vs wrong, and (most of all) the importance of honesty to a relationship and its foundation. There are certainly times when (for example) Annika might tell me something and ask that I not tell Andrea; I’m certain the reverse happens too, which in my mind is mostly acceptable as it’s important to respect her wishes and confidence. But not telling, versus telling lies and deceptions, are entirely different ends of the spectrum.

I’m at a loss as to how to bring this up with Annika in a constructive way, to properly discuss how one should be honest…

Let’s say a blind date means this: you meet someone for the first time, you spend a few hours together, you get to know each other and (maybe) hit it off 0r (more likely) not hit it off.

With Annika some afternoon or evening we’ll enjoy some quality time, where it feels natural and positive with easy conversation. I’ll go to bed happy for the experience.

The next day confirms there is no continuity: the time together is quiet, interrupted, annoying (on Annika’s end), and generally unwelcome.

Raising a teenager is a bit – no, more than a bit – like a perpetual blind date (groundhog day). Each day is a brand new blind date with a stranger, getting to know each other (or in my case avoiding any minefields while proactively navigating the terrain).

Niki and Britta promise we it won’t be this way with them…right…:)

Funny…

Annika, maybe one day years from now you can better explain the reasons you decided to stop gymnastics; it certainly came as a surprise to Mama and I!

To be clear, I’m not mad or upset; while I loved watching you train, compete, and improve your gymnastics over the years (and years!), in the end this was your passion and if the desire has left you then stopping is the right thing to do.

I just feel bad thinking that this must have been a difficult time and decision for you, months in the making, that I just didn’t see. Prior to your leaving for Europe (summer 2018) you had expressed exhaustion about the drive to Reno – I totally get that, although having guaranteed time to spend with you, even if it has to be in a car, was something I always looked forward to. But you hadn’t hinted – or maybe I was being deaf – that you were uncertain about your ongoing commitment to gymnastics.

Still, what a great time it was, every year getting better. This year was the best, culminating in you going to State (Las Vegas – remember the Hard Rock Cafe? 🙂 ) and Regionals (Phoenix – how about that rental car!).

You did so great in a sport that is extremely physical, challenging, consuming and relentless. I am so proud of you, and watching your progress is something I’ll always remember. And just in case I need reminding, we have this which, I must admit, was fun yet emotional to put together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7M-zvFLkMk

North Tahoe High School provides this great service for all grades, to include Freshman (which is where I think it has the most value). They sit you down and ask about your goals, your motivations. They map out your class schedule for the entire 4 years. The emphasis is on maintaining goals: per class, per year, for 4 years. The message is clear: you are here for a purpose, this is a journey, and it needs to be taken seriously.

And, of course, Annika stood to the challenge. Talked about gymnastics, about college, about how her grades are important to her.

And with that, here is the result. There may be slight changes, but this is all Annika’s intent – she didn’t try to avoid any challenges (look at all the AP’s).

High School Curriculum

It’s hard not to be dramatic about 8th grade graduation.

I’m told by reliable sources that the high school years scream by in a flash – plus once they start driving you have even less time together as their chauffeur, so the memories will be fewer and farther between.

I don’t want this. Annika is so much fun now, so beautiful to watch and hang out with. No work, no effort, so easy, so much dividend being payed back…

If I think of it Annika has already had a number of “graduations”. It started with the monkey bars at Commons Beach; she would always be up for an afternoon there, to play and work on the monkey bars. Once she had them there was one less reason to go to Commons Beach, and we soon stopped…when I go there now I’m fixated with the monkey bars, remembering when…

There was the play area at Rideout Community Center. For both Annika and the twins it was a common place to go in the winter to play while Andrea was working. We had so much fun there…until one winter they didn’t want to return (they thought they had outgrown it, I disagreed)…in Fall 2017 the twins will have their 4th grade at Rideout while the Tahoe Lake school is renovated, and I’m sure when I take my 4th graders to school I will be overrun with memories of them (and Annika) as toddlers…

Graduations. An indication of success and accomplishments and growth. It’s the growth part that’s…sobering.

And I know Annika has such a different perspective, as all teenagers do at that age; it’s all about looking ahead (growth is a good thing, she’s getting closer to driving)!

People tell me to appreciate these years; if I could I would voluntarily over-appreciate them, but I just can’t get enough.

In Nov 2006, when Annika was 3.5 years old, we enrolled her in “My Playground”, which was the precursor to Truckee Gymnastics. At home Annika was already physical and gifted. Annika flourished at My Playground, and was always committed to working hard and having fun.

Gym Camp @ 6 years old

Gym @ 8 years old

Around the summer of 2011 “My Playground” moved to a larger building, and formally added gymnastics (now called Truckee Gymnastics). Annika was so happy, having a bigger gym with more opportunities. Annika @ 9; Gym camp @ 10; Annika @ 11.

Annika started competing at Level 4 when she was 11 in 2014; Gold Country in Grass Valley, Sept 2014 and Oroville in Feb 2015. In the Fall of 2014 Annika got to compete in the NorCal State championships in Oroville – what an accomplishment, and it just fed her passion for gymnastics.

At 12 she competed at Level 5, and continued the next year at level 5 at Spirit of the Flame. She did not compete in the Level 5 NorCal State Championships, mostly due to timing. She started Level 5 in the Fall of 2015, and did not score high enough to make the States Championships that Fall. By Spring of 2016 she scored high enough to be promoted to Level 7, whose Championships would not be until Spring 2017.

By the time she was 13 Annika was competing at Level 7; the competition season changed from Fall to Spring, and one of her thrills was to compete in Vegas.

At Vegas Annika earned a spot to compete at the NorCal State Championships in April 2017. However, 2 weeks before the meet she injured her ring finger during PE at school. For those two weeks she still went to practice, yet was unable to do much due to her finger injury. By the time States came, her finger felt better and Annika was excited to compete and to try and qualify for Regionals in SoCal.

It didn’t happen. She had a great floor routine, scoring 9.0. Her vault looked good, but her score was a low 8.4. An bars things went badly; gripping the bar was too painful with her finger, and she ended up in tears and with a score of 5. She had to pass on beam. The few days after States Annika would randomly break down in tears, so upset about how poorly she did, and not giving herself any slack due to the injured finger.

There were 2 nagging issues throughout her gymnastics career; one that Annika was aware of, one she was not.

The issue that Annika knew of concerned the facilities: while they were more than sufficient when Annika was 8, they were insufficient for a level 5 (or 7) gymnast. In particular, the floor was too small, and too hard.

In January 2016, right after a meet in Reno, Annika broke down and shared her disappointments. She wanted to work harder and proceed faster and be able to practice on a “real” floor. She decided she needed to move. We spent one day in Reno, looking at 5-6 different gyms. They were all huge – sometimes 4-5 times larger than Truckee, with more than one of everything (bars, beams, vaults, even floors). Driving to Reno would be difficult, but it seemed the right thing to do. Annika decided she liked Deltchev the best, so we went for one full practice. Annika ended that session on a cloud; the coaches were great, the girls were nice, the facilities amazing. Later that week we went for a second practice, and Annika turned 180 degrees: she wanted to return to Truckee. In the end I think it was the social factor; she missed Kira, Natalie, and Maddy. While I wasn’t that happy about the idea of driving to Reno 4-5 times a week, I was also not that happy about Annika returning to Truckee either. I knew that gymnastics was very important to her, and I also knew that Truckee was not going to get her there.

The one issue Annika did not know about concerned the viability of the competition team. From the start the team was small; and it never grew. Whereas other competitions teams had multiple coaches focusing on individual events, Truckee had a single coach (Michelle, then Christina) responsible for all levels (4,5,6,7) and all events. With on average 4 girls on the entire team, and no visible growth in the future, it didn’t look like the team could continue to exist.

Which brings us to today, April 3rd 2017, which is when Truckee announced that it will cease the competition team, and focus on Xcel. We told Annika last night, and it crushed her. The twins were so upset on behalf of Annika that they were a mess as well. Heartbreaking. It’s only been 3 days since her poor showing at States, so this news is a double blow.

I want so badly for her to continue; her options now are staying at Truckee with Xcel Diamond, or moving to a gym in Reno. I don’t know what she will decide, but I do think it’s important for her to continue gymnastics and chase her dreams which for a long time now has been to compete in gymnastics in College.

Truckee whet her appetite, but it was never going to be able to get Annika to where she wants to go; in particular, Annika has always been willing to work much more than what the Truckee team could provide.