November, 2020

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 Stoics embrace an idea, which seems negative at first glance, of attaining happiness by visualizing losing something you have. The concept is that we get so caught up in wanting what we don’t have (and, often times, once we get that we simply move on to wanting another thing we don’t have) that we forget to appreciate what we do have. A few ways to exercise this task is via negative visualization (imagine, only for a moment, losing something you have and appreciate) and the “Last Time” meditation.

While stoics would recommend these brief exercises a few times each day, I limit myself to about once a year. Or two.

The first time I contemplated the “last time”, it was unintentional. I had to visit Rideout Elementary, which over the years was a school, then a Rec center, then a school, then back to a Rec center. When Annika was just a few years old, I would take her to Rideout (the Rec center) in the winter to play in a toddlers area – a fantastic opportunity that had more than a toddler needed to entertain herself for a few hours. This was a winter event only; summers were spent outside. A few years later Annika was a young girl, too old to enjoy Rideout, but the twins were at the age to continue the tradition – so the experiences continued…until they didn’t.

Years after I had stopped visiting Rideout with any of the girls, I visited the school (the Rec center was temporarily gone) and I was suddenly flooded with memories of playing with the girls – really having so much fun. And I was struck by the idea that one day long ago, first with Annika and later with Niki & Britta, we came to Rideout and played and then left, not realizing we would never return (since the next winter the girls would be too old to fully enjoy what the Rec center had to offer).

Upon being thrown into a “Last Time” contemplation, I mourned, for a moment, the loss of those times together. Most of the time we were alone, every time I was entirely present for the girls, and the opportunity for us to compliment each of our imaginations was priceless. And the idea that I never realized the “Last Day” when it happened (and realistically I should have been able to see it coming) just befuddles me. It would have been a moment worth commemorating, if only to myself, but having missed it at the time I made the proper acknowledgement years later.

So I took it further. The summer equivalent to Rideout was Commons Beach; just like Rideout, I would often take the girls there in the non-winter months, and we would play on the playground. And just like Rideout, one summer I stopped going – almost literally never visiting the playground again. So I drove to Commons Beach, and walked around the playground, recalling the fun and the laughs and the games.

Now, as I said, “last time” seems negative at first glance; it certainly is melancholy, if only for a moment. But it motivates and reminds me to appreciate what I have, right now. Which are 12 year olds which are still so much fun to be with, and a 17 year old who is traveling some difficult terrain right now and I want so badly to figure out how to help her.

Being present, but reflecting back.