The Truth About You & Me and What We Deserve

I have a hundred kids and I love them all. It’s the thing I’m proudest of – I’m a really good dad and I adopt freely. No matter our age, we never stop wanting a mom and a dad to guide us, hold us, and be proud of us. It’s just really, really hard to receive later in life that which we were denied as children.

We need people who love unabashedly. We need people who get in the way. I am blessed to have had people who inserted themselves between me and the f@cked up mess I saw in the mirror. They taught me that what I believed and perceived simply wasn’t true.

My perception was warped by what it felt like to be me. Seeing myself reflected in their eyes wrecked me. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong but I was never more scared. If they were right then I had to change everything.

Receiving love is a leap of faith and the hardest thing for me to accept was me.

I have a hundred brothers and sisters. They’re the best kind of people. Each and every one is a misfit like me. We carried the infinite sadness of never feeling like we belonged. The Universe put us in each others path so that we can be loved and be a part of something greater than ourselves.

We need each other to transcend knowing and come to a place of feeling what it is that we deserve. To be held dear in someone’s heart is the greatest gift of all, especially if that heart has been broken once or thrice (or a hundred times).

I’d like to tell you that I’m so damned clever that I went out and found my family. I didn’t. I went out into the world and we crossed paths. I stopped pushing people away and started looking them in the eye. I found kindred spirits. I found people who got me. We muddled through awkward conversations and found the courage to say, “Yeah, me too.”

I thought I was the only one, even though I knew I wasn’t. If you can get that then you can get me. Today I know that I need every single person that the Universe puts in front of me. I know that some will only stay for minutes and some will stay a lifetime. What I ask myself is, “What do I have to give you and what am I to receive from you?”

You validate me with your gaze. You recognize me though we are just meeting. You see me and affirm that I matter. Yeah, you do too. I want to hug you until you see what I see, but for now, please just believe that I believe you matter very much.

“We cannot achieve more in life than what we believe in our heart of hearts we deserve to have.” – James R Ball

Jim LaPierre

About Jim LaPierre

Jim LaPierre LCSW CCS is the Executive Director of Higher Ground Services in Brewer, Maine. He is a Recovery Ally, mental health therapist and addictions counselor. He specializes in facilitating recovery (whether from addiction, trauma, depression, anxiety, or past abuse) overcome obstacles, and improve their quality of life. Jim is the cofounder of Sobernow.com an online addiction recovery program that is affordable and provides complete anonymity