My dreams have been off the chart lately. It may be because I’m taking uridine and just getting much better sleep, in general. They’ve been wildly metaphorical and reflective of the major challenges I’ve faced in my life, which have been playing out on my keyboard as I write my memoir. I’m calling it Stripped.

I was aware of the heap of struggles and difficult situations I’ve gone through, but wasn’t quite conscious of how deeply those things have affected me. Like, over my entire life. Memoir writing has sent me on an excavation mission, journeying deep into my subconscious to find the lingering problems, dig them out, and get rid of them for good. The work has been hard but worth it. I’ve started to view myself differently through the process of writing about my life. I’ve found so much compassion for my younger self, realizing how strong I was, even in my fragility. Seeing the beauty in the choices I made, even when they took me down difficult roads. Really, watching my own evolution unfold before me.

As I’ve been digging around in my own psyche, my dreams have been speaking to me. I had a profoundly strong one at the end of December that actually provided me the thread I needed to tie the whole book together. I was struggling with how to unite over 20 years of stories from my personal chronology… and then I had a dream that gave me exactly what I needed. How cool is that?

One of the themes in my life has been a sense of struggle with men.

I know, imagine.

Not only in my personal relationships, but also just in dealing with scenarios throughout life. My experiences with RV technicians, salesmen, dealership managers, and service advisors have been particularly awful. For example, my fifth wheel has been at the dealership for almost five months, for some pretty basic warranty repair work (I’ve been in a house I rented for the winter). My key complaint was that some of my pass-through storage doors did not properly latch (and couldn’t be locked) because the frames were installed incorrectly. They also leak because of this. I’ve had to hound the service department to get anything done.

Finally, the dealership called me a couple weeks ago to let me know the repairs were finished and the camper was ready for pickup. When I got there and walked the unit with my service advisor, not only were some of the repairs not completed, but they had actually made other things WORSE. One door still didn’t latch and couldn’t be locked. Two of the doors that were fine before I dropped it off now had big gaps that I could stick my hands through. One door almost fell off the hinges when I opened it, and another had mysterious holes drilled into the top of the frame, exposing the interior styrofoam-ish material that’s sandwiched between the fiberglass.

I kept my cool as the technician came out and tried to explain that “this is just how it’s supposed to be, they’re never perfect.” Then he went off muttering about how the manufacturers put them together poorly, blah blah blah. I’ve been in this scenario many times over the years, just with RV stuff, and I always feel like I have to navigate carefully. If I go off, I’m a barky bitch. If I am sweet as honey, nothing ever gets accomplished. It feels like a lose-lose scenario and I don’t think this is something I’d face if I had a pair of balls swinging between my legs.

As this guy broke into a monologue of mansplaining, I interrupted him. I had enough. I wasn’t stupid and this was ridiculous. I let him know this was my third rig and my seventh year of RVing. “We both know that the pass-through storage doors shouldn’t almost fall off the hinges when opened, and they should latch properly, and they should be able to be locked,” I told him. “So please stop. It’s insulting. Just fix it.”

He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. His body language revealed he wanted to choke me out but I stood my ground and stared at him directly. He didn’t say anything for a moment and then he lowered his head. There was no sincerity in his voice as he said, “Well, I want you to be happy,” but at least we were moving in the right direction. “This is going to take me time to fix,” he said. “I mean, this is going to be several hours of work.”

Noting that he now admitted there was something to fix, I told him that was fine. “If it had just been done right in the first place, there wouldn’t be anything to fix,” I said. And oooooh he didn’t like that comment.

I was perfectly calm during the exchange, but I was firm. I held my ground. I didn’t let myself get frustrated. I didn’t back down or submit to the masculine Energy. I bowed up in the most elegant way and even though I was still irritated that the repairs had not been done correctly, I walked away from that interaction feeling empowered.

Exchanges like this, especially with men, can be a tricky thing for women to navigate. We don’t want to get labeled as hormonal, overly emotional, or hysterical if we’re upset about being wronged. Sometimes, it feels easier to back down and walk away, to accept subpar work or shitty outcomes because we aren’t sure how to hold space for ourselves. When in balance, masculine and feminine energy can work together in this beautiful, symbiotic way. But when the balance is off, it’s usually the feminine that’s dominated and defeated.

My dream last night had to do with this. I dreamed I went to the dealership to pick up my fifth wheel, and it was still broken. Upon seeing this, I went to my service advisor to complain but nobody was in the building. Eventually, after searching for help for hours, I talked to a condescending [male] manager who told me he’d fix it and the camper would be ready for pickup the next day.

I returned the following day to pick it up and was told where the camper was on the lot. When I walked up to it, 3/4 of the fifth wheel was gone. It was like they had taken a giant saw and sliced through the whole front of the camper and just wiped everything off the frame. It looked almost like a semi with no trailer hitched behind it – just an empty bottom frame.

I was shocked. My heart sunk as I looked at the annihilation of my camper, which is also my home. I stood there in the parking lot and called the dealership to speak with the manager. When he picked up, he began mocking me. I wasn’t being overly emotional, but he was on the other end of the phone, making sniffling cry sounds, as if I were. The feeling I had in my dream was one of powerlessness.

As I’ve watched battles play out in my life, especially this tug-o-war between masculine and feminine energy, I’ve decided that I will no longer allow myself to feel defeated or overpowered by the masculine. I’ve gotten much better with standing my ground in the last few years. But I also realize a paradigm shift has been needed. If I expect experiences like this to be adversarial, they will be. If I walk into a present situation and expect it to play out a certain way, based on my past experiences, I’ll remain in this maddening groundhog day scenario. Nothing will ever change. I’ll keep feeling overpowered and defeated. If I expect to go to the dealership to pick up my RV and face a battle, I will face a battle. If I expect interactions with men to be an epicenter for the masculine-feminine energy war, they will be.

I guess, the message that’s been coming to me is twofold. First, to stand my ground and hold space for myself. Second, to stop expecting present outcomes to look like past outcomes.

I have an appointment this week to pick up my (hopefully repaired) camper. I’m going to go into it with the expectation that everything is fixed and the exchange will be a healthy one. But if it’s not… I’m prepared to tap into my warrioress energy…

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