29. 07. 2026
Whitesnake – Here I Go Again
I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wastin’ no more time
Per usual, I’ll be mixing metaphors here… Per usual, upon digging deeper, reflecting on one thing took me somewhere unexpected.
Alors, on y va!
CONFESSIONS OF AN (EX) THIRD-WHEEL
Recently, two seemingly insignificant situations found me adding “ex” in front of the third wheel credential I’d been proudly claiming for a significant portion of my adult life.
The first was with a friend planning a few hiking trips for a women’s group. It was slated to be an overnight excursion several hours away down in the Pyrenées. Husbands would be joining – typically these hikes are just for association members.
This normally would never bother me. It doesn’t bother me now.
Still, I simply said, “I think I’ll sit this one out and let the couples go.”
It just didn’t feel like my place, and I’m totally fine with that. Not everything is for me.
That same evening I was in a group text with some women planning to go to lunch in a neighboring town – another in the group has recently opened a highly recommended restaurant in said town.
As I saw “me +1” and “we’re in” come roll in on the WhatsApp thread… as I was offered to ride in one couple’s car, and then another’s, I realized I didn’t want to go. I contacted the organizer on the side to say I wouldn’t be making it.
She was really concerned that she’d done something wrong, and offered to invite other singles or make it right in some way. I had to repeatedly assure her that it was fine, that I’m fine, and that I wasn’t upset or uncomfortable… I thought the husbands should go.
I was just a little fatigued by the extra effort I had to put forward to make sure she felt okay about my not going.
⭗ ⭗ ⭗
The thing is, it was odd for me to turn down these invitations because I’ve been boasting the title of professional third wheel for about the past almost twenty years now.
I have loved hanging out with couples!
Think about it – more things to talk about, more inside jokes, going from sports to museums, a perfect two-against-one when ganging up on the other for falling asleep during the most important part of the season finale… more folks to help pick the restaurant.
That last one’s a joke, three people are absolute trash at deciding what to eat.
My best friends have often been couples, still are, and many of my favorite memories are from third-wheeling. I wouldn’t give them or any of that up.
So, why on earth do I suddenly care about whether I hang out with couples???
I seriously had to ask myself this.
Am I sad that I’m not partnered? Ashamed?
Nope.
That’s not it.
I realize that it just doesn’t fit where I’m at right now, as my way of moving forward.
Being a third wheel feels secure.
It feels like a little family where you always belong, even at your worst. You spend a lot of time together and eventually all get to see each other at less than your best, and it doesn’t matter – you stay because… love.
But…
As I was turning down fun adventures simply because they were going to be couple-heavy, it dawned on me that I’d turned the security of third-wheeling into almost two decades of hiding out.
Two decades of shrinking.
At the time, I needed to be in those safe spaces, where I could feel completely accepted and appreciated – cranky, joyful, or otherwise. But, I had also reduced myself to a supporting role in someone else’s story.
Those friendships were (and still are) healing, they served as a cocoon where I could safely find my shape, like butterfly soup. Still, it’s called “butterfly” soup because eventually there’s a butterfly.
BUTTERFLY SOUP
When a caterpillar forms its chrysalis, it doesn’t just grow wings and rearrange itself.
It dissolves.
The caterpillar releases enzymes that break down nearly all of its own body tissue into a rich cellular soup. It essentially digests itself from the inside out.
Gross.
No regrets, but as I reflect on my sudden aversion to being the odd-number in the group, I realize I no longer want to have cracking jokes from the back seat be one of my defining traits.
But, why?
I had to ask myself why the sudden change, and it called to mind a very short stint in group therapy.
Stay with me here, this is not some epic sad tale…
I was in grad school and had gone to a therapist for the first time to get some support. After a few sessions, they ultimately referred me to a group, because… budget. I went twice and realized that I was getting nothing out of it – in fact, it was making me feel worse.
Why?
I recognized that my default is to pull back, to place my needs and desires after those of others. So I sat there trying to help others solve their challenges without ever talking about my own – the opposite of what I needed.
Third-wheeling has served me as a place of stability and safety, but, like group therapy, it’s also a place where I can easily just roll with what others want or need.
It’s a place where, while some of my needs are met, I don’t want to rock the boat and make demands.
I also don’t have to think that hard about what I want. In fact, by sheer numbers, I assume that whatever I want doesn’t carry enough importance as measured against the group.
I’m not saying my friends ever asked for that, or ever would ignore my needs, it had just become my habit.
Essentially, I’d become uncomfortably comfortable with shrinking.
It’s something I’ve done in so many spaces in my life for fear of being called difficult, arrogant, selfish… And the irony is, being a third wheel helped me to see this in myself.
My friends have given me the space to become soup.
They’ve provided me with a safe space – a cocoon – in which I could dissolve down to my mushy essence. A space where I could safely reflect.
At its core, third-wheeling has revealed how comfortable I’d become playing caterpillar, only seen by those who bothered looking. I’ve been completely uncomfortable with being the main character, the one whose presence assumes being seen.
When the caterpillar goes into soup-mode, what’s left is mostly undifferentiated cells… just tiny clusters that were dormant inside the caterpillar all along, waiting…
These clusters survive the mushification process and use the slurry of nutrients around them as raw material to build the upcoming butterfly’s parts: wings, eyes, antennae…
In the cocoon of third-wheel friendship, I was able to stew in my mush until the essential would-be butterfly, or moth, elements started to emerge. I couldn’t see the butterfly in the caterpillar, and I definitely couldn’t see it in the soup, but all of the stuff was always there just the same.
So, in reflecting on why I’d suddenly gotten so weird about being the odd number, I’ve realized that soup me had already started coalescing into a transformed version of myself.
A less wormy version with less wormy ways.
I came to France to be and do differently. I now realize that that means not continuing with the same habits of my caterpillar life.
I may still be soup, but a caterpillar I am not.
WORMS DON’T FLY
The part that’s most interesting about caterpillar soup isn’t the science – though the science is pretty damn cool – it’s the meaning.
The caterpillar dissolves completely. It’s gone, and something new assembles itself from what I can only imagine looks like a total mess, using a blueprint that was always already there.
And that’s the part I love the most.
The blueprint was always already there.
Caterpillar isn’t the end game…
We may start as caterpillars, but we were never meant to end up as caterpillars. If a bird doesn’t eat you (don’t let the birds eat you), you’re eventually going to end up as soup, and then… some kind of flying thing.
No one does this for you.
No one is inside the cocoon with you.
Safe spaces – relationships, careers, status – that allow us to reflect and evolve are essential, but they don’t define what we are. They merely create an environment, a cocoon, in which we can deconstruct and transform into something more complex than any single role we play.
We already have the blueprint for that more complex thing that we are.
Whatever it is for each of us, on the other side of the bisque we’ve got to emerge as that thing… We will eventually have to be seen for what we always were, in our own right.
That seems a bit scary, going from something we know how to be to something we’ve never practiced, but moths and butterflies don’t seem to sweat it. I don’t think they come out of the cocoon and think,
“…but I’ve never flown before…
What was I thinking growing wings?!?
I can’t do this!”
Think about it, it would be a total waste to come out of the chrysalis and just cling to branches eating someone’s apple trees when you could be flying from flower to flower pollinating and looking good… or going down in a blaze of glory in someone’s porch light – do you!
And, it’s effortless.
Caterpillars aren’t in there taking flight lessons or learning how to use that coily tongue thing. They’re not in classes learning about flowers indigenous to the region or how to stay away from kids with nets… They come out and instinct, the blueprint, sets them on their way.
As I reflect on how and why I’m leaving my third-wheel – shrinking – era behind, this feels especially true for me. This shift didn’t start with knowing what had changed, it simply started with a feeling that something was different.
It began with a nudge of instinct, a knowing that whatever I was playing at, it wasn’t fully me.
So many things are turned on their head these days.
For so many, our sense of safety and predictability is faltering…
I think that that is perhaps because many of us have gotten really good at being caterpillars, with our only aim being to cling to a branch and make sure our basic needs are taken care of. We’ve perhaps believed that that’s all we came to be and do.
We don’t yet know what it is to fly rather than crawl. In fact, flying sounds scary – we’re told it’s scary. We don’t know what it is to express our own unique pattern and to feel safe in being seen.
We have a hard time believing that everything we need is already there.
But, it is.
One thing I think we can definitely take from the caterpillars is that they don’t fight the process.
Like them, maybe we just need to let it happen – let ourselves transform in the soup, and trust that we’ll automatically know how to be whatever it is we were always to become.
L’enfer
L’enfer is how you say “hell” in French.
I mean it in the literal sense – as in, “hot as hell.” I don’t want to overstate the case here, but I feel like it’s a good shortcut to give you an idea of what the recent canicules (heatwaves – PLURAL) have felt like.
We’ve had three since June.
THREE – since June.
When I was in the states, I imagined France to be an oasis free of extreme weather. Whenever I’d hear about a heatwave over here, I’d think, “that’s cute, so it’s what, 85?”
I don’t believe that anymore.
I’m on a journey to understand celsius well enough to not have to go back in and change my outfit as soon as I walk out the door.
Let me just say that once you hit the 30s, you’re going to be sweating…
We’ve had whole strings of days hovering in the upper 30s, even crossing 40! I mean, when you hit over 35, you should probably stay inside… where AC is not guaranteed.
Still it’s better than being hit with the hot breath of Satan everytime there’s a breeze.
It looks like at this point no one in Europe can even get their hands on a portable AC unit until sometime after next October. That may sound like hyperbole, but my very unscientific poll of myself and others who’ve been trying (and having orders canceled) tells me it’s true.
On a more serious note…
In Bordeaux we narrowly escaped the threat of encroaching wildfires, though not the smoke. Many neighboring towns were evacuated to here, and the region will be recovering for some time to come. It has been amazing to feel the support from friends in the states and from all over France. I had at least six people contact me to offer a place to stay if I needed to get out of town.
It’s been emotional.
With that, it’s not all doom and gloom. Despite le diable tapdancing on our dripping backs, we’re managing to find some levity.
For one thing, there was Fête de la Musique, a national day-long celebration of live music (bands, djs…) that happens across France every June 21st (the solstice). If you’re ever thinking of visiting, this would be an event to consider being here for.
I was out of town on the 21st last year, so I had no idea what it was all about… This year it was postponed until after 7pm in Bordeaux due to the extreme heat in the region. A friend and I eventually ventured out after 10 – it was still a sweltering 95 at 1am, but totally worth it!
The Bordelais were out, and there was music in every square and down every street. Friends in Paris reported the same.
We also threw a big Marseillaise (the French national anthem) at the heat and filled the terraces to cheer France on in the World Cup. There were a few very late nights (with some games starting at 11pm), a poster of Mbappé depicted as dictator, and more hot beer and rosé than necessary.
We went out with a wimper, but some very sweaty, happy memories were made. Allez les Bleus!
6 Responses
Love this! Miss you!!
FRIEND! 😍
Once again so good! I look forward to every post! Love you!
💕 Thanks for helping me cacoon 😉
It’s not my fault I fell asleep and didn’t remember the end of that episode. 🙂
I’m still not sure you’re not trying to break up with us, but am happy to watch a friend growing and evolving into what she wants to be. Or just is.
Haha! We’ll blame contentment.
And, you’re stuck with me.