Words of wisdom from Tony Soprano.

In my ongoing journey toward fabulous mental health (there's a ways to go), I always seem roadblocked by my inability to really say for once and for all that my mom didn't do what I needed, wasn't there for me. I think about how much worse her life was than mine, how mistreated she was by her mother, and go back and forth about my memories of my childhood. "Was she that bad or was it just my childish perspective?" "But what about all the good times? It couldn't have been that bad." "I know she was doing the best she could."

I can just never even in my own mind stand up for myself like I need to and say that no matter how much she tried, it just was not what I needed. My mom died when I was in my 30's and we never got to a good relationship. Since she died, I don't feel any connection with her at all. With some absent or dead friends/relatives, I do have a sort of feeling of closeness sometimes, but not my mom. It just seems wrong. I think I am still trying to be close, trying not to lose her affection... when it is actually long gone. But I think that still trying to not upset her, to be good and therefore loved, just holds me back.

The day after this realization, I was watching one of the last Sopranos episodes in which Tony is with his therapist, talking of his mother. Tony says that mothers are like buses, bringing children into this world and then continuing on with their own journeys. Then he says that he knows his bus is gone, but he keeps trying to get back on it.

I'm happy for everyone who has lasting and wonderful relationships with their mothers, but for those of us where the reality never comes close to the dream, Tony's words are helpful.