I couldn’t be more excited for my client and student Anne Glaser, who recently celebrated her first published essay, in Mothers Always Write. Anne writes of a difficult period in which her teenage son seemed to be spiraling into … she wasn’t sure what. And of the adventure that taught him a new perspective—and a new appreciation for his mother.
Anne invites us into some of her darkest moments, with self-scrutiny and candor:
Sometimes I would wake up my husband to vent. Scott listened patiently and encouraged me to go back to sleep. He’d recite things the therapist told us, that Max was growing too old to control, that he needed to learn from his mistakes, that this stage would pass. But night’s darkness disagreed, telling me a different story.
I resented Scott’s ability to intellectualize our problem, his faith in the therapist’s advice. I resented that he could sleep.
Sometimes I gave in to my fear, doing exactly what the therapist told me not to do, which was to frantically text Max, searching for reassurance that he wasn’t doing drugs or hanging out with the “bad” friends. I’d lie in bed waiting for a message to light up my screen, a cellular beacon of confirmation that Max was fine, and I could sleep.
Sometimes Max would respond to the texts, but soon he stopped.
“No one else’s mother texts them at 11:00 p.m.,” he’d spit at me. “Justin thinks you’re insane.”
Justin was the friend who had access to the drugs.
I was insane.
And she ends with a twist that I imagine will bring a tear to many a mother’s eye. Congratulations, Anne!