Off Balance: A Memoir

by Dominique Moceanu

  Tata said he was paying her a decent salary, as much as he could afford during these beginning stages of the gym when most of the revenue went to cover bills and operating costs. He was working hard to increase enrollment and actually had intended to give Luminita a raise, but on his terms. For now, he was trying to meet her needs as best they could. I know Tata and Mama were even starting the process to bring Luminita’s boyfriend at the time over from Romania just to keep her happy.

  Apparently, it was a relative who had been stirring the pot from the beginning by repeatedly encouraging Luminita to ask for more money. I overheard Tata and Mama talking about it one evening when I was on the balcony debating whether I should sneak downstairs to the kitchen for a quick late-night snack; I was starving. I never found out who this family member was, but Luminita later implied that someone in Tata’s extended family was telling her to make these demands. It was a shame that my own family was whispering about Tata behind his back and causing problems for our family.

  “Tata, Tata, what are we going to do?” I gasped after I heard the gym door slam behind Luminita.

  “You’ll be fine. We’ll find you a new coach,” he grumbled before storming out the opposite side of the gym as Luminita. He said it so matter-of-factly, as if it were as simple as buying a new pair of shoes. Did he not remember how difficult it was to find Luminita in the first place? I was furious with Tata for ruining everything that was finally right in my life. Why couldn’t he hold on to the one person who’d brought me stability that year and helped rekindle my fire for gymnastics? She not only helped me achieve my big win at the Goodwill Games, but we had bonded in the gym like no other coach I had had before. Outside the walls of the gym, she was like a big sister to me. I confided in her and she in me. We were inseparable over the course of those ten months when she first came to Houston, and I depended on her.

  I knew this was the beginning of the end. What would follow that argument in the coming months would change the course of our lives forever. It literally tore my family apart—almost for good. That day was a huge turning point in my life and marked the beginning of my independence, though not in the way I had imagined.

  Watching Luminita explode at Tata released my floodgates, too. All my anger and resentment had been building for some time; I just hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten. My relationship with Tata was already on thin ice. I was fed up with him trying to control my every move, not giving me any freedom of choice or opinion in the gym or at home. I was tired of putting on a front and pretending that our relationship was fine when it really wasn’t. I was tired of being Tata’s workhorse and having everyone depend on me but never having a voice in anything.

  I think Tata sensed that he couldn’t stop me from growing up, but he wasn’t ready to release his control over me. I think it scared him that I now had my driver’s license and I wanted to do things with other kids my own age. I remember one of the very few times I invited friends to our house earlier that year. Tata got into one of his moods and started loudly berating me for something in the downstairs kitchen. Luminita was there, and she and Mama were with us in the kitchen. I was so embarrassed because I knew that my friends could hear him yelling at me. That was another thing about Tata: he didn’t care whom he acted out in front of. These public rants also served as fodder for gossip throughout the gymnastics community, making people whisper about how crazy, unstable, or belligerent he was. I was so angry with Tata for humiliating me in front of my friends that I somehow had the nerve to answer back and our voices got even louder. I’m sure my friends were terrified listening from upstairs. Tata was shocked and ticked off that I stood up to him, and he started to charge me with his hand raised ready to strike me.

  “Dimitru, calm down! What’s come over you?!” I can still hear Mama saying in Romanian as she reached for his raised hand.

  Tata yelled that he’d never said I could invite friends to the house. Mama tried to calm him, telling him she had given me permission, but that only fueled the argument as Tata then exploded at Mama because she hadn’t asked him for permission, either. I was mortified that my friends were listening to Tata scream at both Mama and me for inviting them over. I wanted out. Tata turned toward me, and I recognized the rage in his face and knew I had to get out of the house before he hit me. I inched backward away from Tata as he got closer and closer to me until my back was against the kitchen door leading outside. In a split second, I grabbed for the doorknob, threw the door open, and took off sprinting down the driveway and into the street as fast as I could. My heart was pounding as I turned my head to see if Tata was chasing me. Thank God, there was no one behind me.

  I kept running until I was a safe distance from the house and then I collapsed in tears on the curb. I didn’t know what to do. I sat in the darkness crying and cursing Tata’s name. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to the house, so I stayed there on that curb and fumed … until I could see Mama and Luminita walking down the street looking for me. I knew I had to go back and apologize to my friends, who were still in the house. It had been more than an hour since I’d run from Tata. I felt so embarrassed, yet I had to go face them and Tata. It was yet another reminder that Tata was as determined as ever to control me, like he controlled Mama, for as long as he possibly could.

  I was seventeen years old and the primary breadwinner of the family, yet Tata still treated me like a ten-year-old, and he certainly didn’t think I needed to concern myself with finances. I, however, felt that if I was capable of earning the money in the first place, then I should be at least involved in decisions and have some input on how that money was going to be spent and invested. Tata got annoyed if I even asked about how much I was earning, how much we’d spent or saved.

  “You don’t have to worry about that, we’ll take care of it,” was Tata’s standard answer. But I did worry. I wanted to keep track and know what was happening with the money I’d made from my career—the endorsements, print ads, the Olympic tour, appearances, and so on. Tata had big ideas, many of which were great, but he was also a risk taker, and I was nervous that he’d spend all my savings. Tata also didn’t always understand how things worked in this country. I remember he didn’t think twice when he began accepting the USA Gymnastics monthly stipend money offered after I’d made the National team. At the time, Tata didn’t understand that accepting that stipend would strip my NCAA eligibility, meaning I would be forever barred from competing as a college athlete. All my parents knew was that they could barely pay their bills and accepting that $1,000-per-month stipend would help keep me in gymnastics. For me, I would have liked to better understand my options, but how could I blame them for not explaining it when they didn’t fully understand it themselves? Misunderstandings like these were warning signs that I needed to be more involved in such decisions. I tried to wedge my way in, but Tata usually stonewalled me.

  “What about college?” I asked Tata about one week before he fired Luminita. “I want to go to college and get my own apartment. I’ll need my own money.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll pay for it. I will send you money,” he replied, but this time it wasn’t good enough for me. I’d seen how he’d take away the car keys from Mama or me when he got angry or in one of his moods. Even though it was childish, it was his way of reminding us who was in control. I could easily foresee him withholding my own money from me when I needed it. I knew I couldn’t trust that he’d send it to me on time every month.

  “What if I have to pay my bills or apartment rent, or buy books?” I challenged him. “You expect me to wait for you to send the money?”

  Tata was furious that I was pushing and made a show of anger instead of answering any of my questions. Deep down, what I really wanted to know, but was still too afraid to ask, was, “Where is all the money I earned?” I feared that all, or most of it, was sunk into the construction of the gym and spent on bad investments. I didn’t have any idea how much it cost to build the gym, but it was the grandest gym I’d seen, so I
knew it was a lot. I just kept praying that it didn’t eat up all of my savings because I needed that money for college, for my future. I know Tata had envisioned the gym as a family business, one I could run one day, but with any business, there is risk. Tata was learning quickly just how much time and money were required to build a successful gym even after the construction was complete. Operating expenses were high, we were desperately trying to build a decent enrollment, and we were a long way from being profitable.

  Standing alone in the gym after Tata fired Luminita, I could feel that everything was spiraling out of control. I had worked so hard the past year, and the sudden instability put me over the edge. As I drove home, I became more and more upset. The reality of the situation was sinking in. By the time I reached our house, I had worked myself up into a rage. I was hysterical imagining how I’d live without Luminita as my coach and a part of my life. I made up my mind that if Luminita was leaving, I was leaving, too.

  I ran to my bedroom in the back of the house and thrashed through my closets searching for luggage. I knew I had less than ten minutes before Mama and Tata would be home to check on me, so I needed to pack my stuff and get out as fast as possible. I didn’t have any idea where I was going, but I had my mind set on leaving and never coming back. I threw as much of my life as I could fit into a few duffel bags and then ran to my car. In a state of hysteria, I just kept repeating to myself, I’ve gotta get out of here, I’ve gotta get out of here. I’m sure I looked like a madwoman, moving feverishly, tears streaming down my face, and talking to myself as I ran out of the house. I did feel horribly guilty leaving Mama and Christina behind. I also couldn’t stop thinking about what Tata would do to me when he tracked me down. It certainly wasn’t the way I envisioned leaving home.

  I drove straight to the house where Luminita lived with other coaches from the gym. As I drove, I called Brian and my loyal cousin Spiros, whom I had grown close to, asking both of them to meet me at Luminita’s. This little makeshift support group huddled with me in Luminita’s room, trying to help me devise a plan. Luminita was freaking out, too, and wanted to make sure we were out of the house by the time Tata came looking for me. The coaches’ house would be one of the first places on Tata’s search. For one thing, he owned the property, and, second, he’d surely know that I’d likely be with Luminita. Tata was already calling repeatedly on my cell phone and for the first time in my life, I ignored his calls.

  Brian made some calls and arranged for me and Luminita to stay in a room at a hotel near I-45 in Houston. Luminita and I stayed up most of that night talking and trying to figure out what we should do. It was all very surreal trying to plan the next stage of my life when up to that point I hadn’t had much freedom at all. My mind was jumping from one idea to the next and in between. All I could think about was how angry Tata was going to be if I went back home.

  Tata kept trying to reach Luminita on her phone as well, and she started to worry that he would call the police and try to have her deported. I briefly called Aunt Janice the following morning to let her know I was okay. I didn’t want to involve her and put her in an awkward position with my parents, so I didn’t tell her where I was. Aunt Janice told me that my parents reported me missing to the police when I didn’t come home that evening. I knew they were worried about me, so I was glad that Aunt Janice could at least let them know that I was okay, but that was it. I really wanted to hear Mama’s voice and let her know where I was as well, but I knew she’d tell Tata.

  Tata was a determined man and it didn’t take him long to track me down. He discovered our hideout after following my cousin Spiros to the hotel when he came to see me on day two, which was right about the time the media caught on to my story. I was terrified when Tata left messages on my phone letting me know that he had found me and that he could come to get me if he wanted. I expected Tata to barge through the door and drag me out screaming. Instead, Tata left another message pleading for me to come home.

  I never in a million years imagined that I’d run away like I did and certainly would never encourage any other seventeen-year-old to do the same, but at the time I felt like things would have gotten even uglier if I had stayed home—especially that night. Things had reached a boiling point in my family. There was no reasoning with Tata and instead of him giving me more autonomy as I was nearing eighteen and becoming an adult, it felt like he was tightening the reins even more. It still had to be his way always and with everything. He wouldn’t accept that I needed a voice in my own life, in my own matters. He was so used to giving orders to all of us that he didn’t stop to think that I would want to be my own person who made decisions for myself one day.

  I certainly wasn’t going to be like Mama—a grown woman who let Tata run her life. At home, Mama took the brunt of Tata’s abuse. I’d get so angry at times that I just wanted to lash out and physically hit Tata for all the hurt he’d caused Mama and me over the years, but I knew more violence was certainly not the answer. For Tata, violence and bullying seemed to be the only way he knew how to release his anger, and I hated that. He was so quick to raise a hand, yell, and hurl harsh, hurtful words at us. Witnessing Tata go off on Mama for something that wasn’t her fault made me so angry and, after all those years, that pent-up anger was starting to show. I’d begun answering back to Tata when he was arguing with Mama and, on occasion, I stepped in to break up a fight between the two of them. Everything I’d bottled up for so long had finally started to boil over, and I knew things would never be the same again. As I sat in that grungy hotel room off the interstate with Brian, Spiros, and Luminita, I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going back.

  Many of the details from the next few days are a blur, but I ended up hiring a lawyer to help me become emancipated. Emancipation, in simple language, was a ruling by the courts that declared me an adult (even though I was only seventeen) and gave me, instead of my parents, legal control of my own finances. When I left home, the only form of money I had in my possession was a check for $10,000 made payable to me for a professional competition I’d done months prior. It was one of the few checks that had actually been hand delivered to me instead of Tata. That check was the foundation for my independence. I started my new life with that $10,000.

  Through the emancipation process, I learned that by age seventeen, I had earned nearly one million dollars. Perhaps not a ton of money by today’s endorsement standards, and not the “millions” Tata sometimes exaggeratedly boasted of, but for me and my family—immigrants who had fled the oppression of Romania—it was an enormous amount of money. I also learned that by the time I was emancipated, Tata had already spent virtually all of it on the gym and a number of other investments, as I’d suspected.

  “Spoiled Brat Divorces Parents” was just one of the many headlines in the media at the time of the emancipation. Many other magazines and tabloids, from the the National Enquirer to our local Texas Monthly, ran equally judgmental and mean-spirited headlines. I was embarrassed to read them as I stood in line at the grocery store, and I wanted to flip every one of them around and hide them, and me, from the world. I wished I could just disappear. I had been a public figure since I was young, and the hope of going through a legal battle privately was a pipe dream, especially when the papers could run juicy headlines about the greedy pixie gymnast and her tyrannical father. Some stories had bits and pieces of the truth, but most often, they were poorly investigated and loaded with misinformation. The situation created a huge burden on my parents as the paparazzi staked out their home and would snap the most unflattering photos of them to sell to the tabloids.

  In my heart, I believed that I was entitled to have a say in what to do with my earnings. I’d worked extremely hard since I was unusually young, and I didn’t understand why people would label me spoiled and crucify me because I wanted to take control of my life, which, yes, included taking control of what was left of my earnings. I had sacrificed nearly all of my childhood for these earnings, but the public and the newspapers didn’t s
eem interested in that. While most seventeen-year-olds are still dependent and asking their parents for money, I was merely asking for some straight and honest answers regarding where the money even was. All I had wanted from Tata initially was to be included in the decision-making process for my financial future, but he refused. He had been so pumped with pride after he built his “Taj Mahal” that it was going to take something drastic to bring him down to earth. Throughout the entire legal process, he never once acknowledged that he made any mistakes in dealing with me or handling my finances, even though he burned through most of my $1 million earnings and had only this enormous gym structure to show for it. My attorney at the time agreed that emancipation was a necessary last resort.

  So much of my childhood was devoted to bringing honor to my family and making sure I never did anything that would in any way shame the Moceanu name. My parents had drilled into me very early on that a child must never disgrace his or her family in any way, and whatever happens inside the walls of the home is no one else’s business. Until now, I had lived my life with this mind-set, applying it to my home life and to my life inside the walls of the gym. I had never complained publicly about the struggles and abuse I met in my home with Tata or at the gym with some of my coaches. It was very painful that I had followed these rules and tried my best to be an honorable “good” daughter only to have it end this way, on the eve of becoming an adult.

  During the trial, it was heartbreaking to see Tata and Mama sitting across the courtroom, looking as if they were losing everything that ever meant anything to them. They both seemed so sad and so hurt. I broke down in tears whenever I looked at them, and I literally fell apart bawling on the courthouse steps after I had to testify. I dreaded taking the stand because I had to admit that Tata abused me and physically hit me, which I’d never said publicly before then. I was ashamed to have to say those words, but it was the truth. It was the worst day of my life, and I couldn’t even look at my parents afterward, knowing that I must have hurt them so, so deeply. My heart was broken. Despite these conflicting emotions and enormous feelings of guilt, I didn’t see any other way to break free from Tata. I needed this for my sanity—so I could live and grow—and I prayed one day we could all look back and understand one another in a different light.