More Than a Rancher

A few blocks more and she was pedaling uphill to the top of Dolores Park, close to her apartment now. She stopped on the sidewalk, her breath audible in the quiet of the night, her emotions finally calm enough to let her body rest.

Breathing deeply, Jenna visualized exhaling the last of the turbulence out of her system. It worked before dance competitions—why not now? She’d left the fog behind in the Haight-Ashbury and she inhaled the rare clear summer night, the feel of her body after exercise, the peace she felt up here on this hill, temporarily above the bustle. She exhaled anger, worry and that horrible sense of rejection her family was so good at serving up along with their perfectly cooked meals.

She inhaled the view. The downtown skyline lights were glittering. The familiar silhouettes mixed in with all the new buildings that were going up so quickly that the horizon seemed a little different each time she stopped to look. But no matter how it changed, it was always magical, always compelling her to explore it further, always making her glad she’d been born and raised in San Francisco.

Her heart calmed and her frayed nerves wove themselves back together. She looked up at the few stars bright and brave enough to appear despite the glow of the city lights. And she waited. Slowly a thought crystallized. The frustration and hurt she felt after tonight’s disastrous dinner was there for a reason. It was starkly obvious. There was a lesson in what had happened with her family tonight. She needed to stop hoping that people would change.

She shouldn’t have gone to dinner expecting her family to be supportive of her. They’d never supported her before, so what made her hopeful that they’d suddenly start?

She shouldn’t have expected she could have any influence over her mom’s drinking. All the literature from the Al-Anon meetings she’d attended for months, ever since her mom’s drunk dialing started, clearly stated that you couldn’t make someone else stop drinking.

In fact, at Al-Anon they said the Serenity Prayer, which was all about change. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Jenna obviously needed that wisdom right now.

The only person she could change was herself. It was a lonely thought, but it was also oddly comforting. If she stopped trying to change others, it would mean less betrayal and hurt when people didn’t act the way she wanted them to. It might even mean she’d have more energy to focus solely on her own life—her dancing, her performing and hopefully soon her own dance studio.

Jenna leaned on her bike and watched the sparkling lights of the city. When she owned her own business, one or two of those fairy lights would be the lights of her ballroom. Back in Benson she’d vowed to devote all her time and energy to pursuing that goal. She might be on her own, with no family and no boyfriend to lean on, but if the result was that she finally made her dreams come true, then maybe being alone was a pretty good choice for now.