August 1st is one of the busiest days of my year. I help families through the college admissions process, and that’s the day the Common App opens. Families are anxious. Seniors are staring at a fall that will decide a lot about their next four years, and they need me sharp, available, and locked in.
It’s also the day my grown kids asked if I could take my grandbabies for two nights. My grandson is 3 1/2. He runs on sugar, finds every secret stash of Hershey’s Kisses no matter where I hide them, and only sits still if we turn on YouTube videos that he readily says he knows will rot his brain.
My granddaughter is 1 1/2 and she is, without exaggeration, part monkey, there is nothing in this house she will not climb over, under, or through.
My adult children work long hours
My son works long hours. My daughter-in-law just launched a cottage baking business that’s taking off, which means some mornings she’s up at 4am baking, prepping, and delivering before the sun rises. They just wanted two nights. They said not to worry if we couldn’t. They sounded tired.
I say no to a lot of things during busy season. I don’t say no to my kids. Not ever, especially not for this. So I said yes. And then I worked and babysat, at the same time, for three days straight. Believe me, I know a million incredible moms out there do this every day. But this was no ordinary day.
I was locked in my office, phone in one hand, coloring page in the other. My husband was on duty when I couldn’t be. I fielded panicky client calls between rounds of life-size Kerplunk and games of chase with a toddler who treats gravity as a suggestion.
At one point I had my head down finishing an email while cutting up meatballs for my granddaughter to either eat or launch across the kitchen, and my grandson asked if he could play basketball with his best friend. I said sure, Pa will be right there.
He said no. That’s you, Grammy.
I did not want to say no to babysitting my grandchildren
My headache, my backache, the stress I’d been carrying all day – gone. Just like that. Some people would have said no to the babysitting. Some people would have told their kids work comes first this week. Some people would have put up an out of office message. It is the weekend after all. I understand both of those choices. But I’ve learned you don’t have to pick a side of that line. I live in the middle and I help everyone, even when it’s a circus. (One of my friends jokingly calls me the United Way…)
But I know exactly why saying no to my grandkids isn’t an option for me. Three years ago I lost my oldest son. What lets me sleep at night is knowing he never doubted for a second that I was his person. He knew exactly how loved, adored, and valued he was. My other kids know it too.
And the families I work with get a very close version of that same devotion. It doesn’t stop at my own front door. I run a business built on being there for families in their most anxious moments, and I don’t disappear. I never have. My clients are living their own version of exhausted and afraid right now, watching their teens’ futures come down to a deadline.
I run my business like I run everything else, no shortcuts
They need me to show up too. So I run my business the way I run everything else that matters to me, all in, no shortcuts, with a team I trust completely. My application guru gave up a day with her own kids to keep things running smoothly here on August 1st, and midday I texted her that she’s getting another raise. She’s earned every bit of it. I could not do this job without her.
I’m used to being in the middle. It’s basically my job description, mediating between anxious parents and equally anxious tees, translating what one is too scared to say to the other, holding both sides steady until they can hear each other again.
We spend a lot of our lives avoiding the middle everywhere else, though.
Nobody wants to be caught in the middle of an argument. Nobody wants to get stuck in the middle of two friend groups, forced to pick a side just to keep the peace.
I am standing in the middle of all the things I want to do on purpose
And nobody wants to hear they’re in “midlife,” like it’s a waiting room between two more interesting rooms. The middle has a bad reputation. It sounds like indecision, like you couldn’t commit to one side or the other. I used to think of my 40s as that kind of middle, the sandwich years, everyone calls them, caught between aging parents and growing kids, stretched too thin to do either one well. But this week I saw it differently.
The middle isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you can choose to stand in, on purpose, for the things that actually matter. Not because you can’t decide. Because you’ve already decided everything on both sides is worth staying for.
My grandbabies, my kids, my husband, and the business I built, as a mother of teens who now serves families raising teens of their own, I’m not caught between them. I’m standing in the middle of all of it, on purpose, and I’m not moving.
As my eyes close tonight, trying to grab a few hours before these two are up before dawn, I find myself wondering why on earth I’m writing a blog post right now instead of sleeping. But some things want to be written down before they slip away.
Tomorrow I’ll do it all again. I’ll be tired. I’ll also know I did right by everyone who needed me.
That’s you, Grammy. That’s me, College Marni.
More Great Reading:
Becoming a Grandparent: A Love Without Limits
Marni Levine spends her days as a Family Strategist – the person families call when the college admissions process gets overwhelming – and her long weekends as Grammy to two grandbabies who have no idea she’s also known as College Marni. She’s the founder of 5L College Consulting, an active member of IECA, and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal on SAT testing accommodations. She lives in New Jersey, and can usually be found doing two things at once.
