I got an email last week from a senior mom that I have not been able to stop thinking about.
I had sent a note out to senior families — the kind I send every other week — just checking in, reminding them that if a decision has not been made yet it is okay, there is still time. She wrote back and said something so honest it stopped me cold.
She said: this process is just not what I envisioned it to be.
And I felt that in my whole body.
Because I think that is true for almost every family in some version. And I think it is one of the most unspoken parts of this entire experience. We build a picture — the campus visit where they just know, the acceptance letter moment, the move-in day that looks like a TikTok — and then the real version shows up. And it is different. Not ruined. Just different in ways we were not totally prepared for.
This week’s podcast episode is the most personal one I have recorded in a while. And I think it needed to be.
I talk about the kid who shuts you out of the decision — and what is actually happening underneath that that most parents never hear. The kid who gets in and does not seem excited — and why that flatness is almost never what it looks like. The mom guilt that sneaks in when you realize you are grieving something that is supposed to be a celebration. And yes — we are talking about perimenopause too, because whoever designed that timeline alongside the junior and senior years of high school owes us all a very sincere apology.
I also talk directly to the students in this one. If your kid caught you in the closet crying with your secret chocolate stash and has no idea why — send them this episode. There is a whole section for them.
And I share what I am doing differently this time around with Josh. Because having already lived through this process once — even as a counselor who does this for a living — genuinely changes how you hold the picture the second time.
If any of this is landing somewhere real for you right now, you are not alone. Send me a message. I mean it.
And if this episode resonates — share it. Text it to the mom who needs to hear that the picture in her head does not have to match the reality for everything to be okay. You never know whose closet you might find her in.
Here with you every step,
