Life is funny, isn’t it? We go through our lives, so many of us, trying to seek what we want, trying to put a name to a face of someone we fantasize about, or something we fantasize about, that would make us happy for the rest of our days. And yet, what it comes down to is just the mere fact that we all want one thing. One simple thing. To be loved. It’s so simple, sometimes it’s ridiculous. Poets write long winded, elaborately phrased poems about love, the need to belong. There are people who make their professions out of it. There are those who swear by it. There are those who have been burned by it. And yet, it all comes down to the mere simple reality, the mere simple fact, that all we want is to have our mind match our heart. All we want is to know for an absolute fact that our heart belongs to someone, something. That the feeling is mutual.

When I was in graduate school, one of my professors had told us in class, “There isn’t another profession in the world that allows you to walk into people’s lives so openly, so shamelessly, so freely as being a therapist.” I thought about that, and since then, I’ve really tried to think of any other profession where the client, the customer, the consumer, invites you so openly, so carelessly, to be part of their lives without so much as a reciprocation from you. To be part of their being. Not just their home, or their money, or their career or profession, but to actually look into the very depths of their souls. In order to help them.

When I think too hard about it, I realize how much this profession of mine feeds on the helpless, the desperate, the most hurt, the most wounded. Sometimes, I feel almost like a vulture, preying on the very weak, inviting people to look closely at their broken hearts so that I may examine it to the very core. Other times, I feel privileged that no other job would ever allow me to get to know humanity at its most vulnerable, most venerable, most honorable. And each day, it surprises me how much, truly, we are such a lost species. Each day, it surprises me how much we are capable of loving each other, and yet we hold back for reasons that don’t seem to make sense to me.

I have kids who I’m working with who are developmentally delayed. Some of them have diagnoses that span several pages long. Others have behaviors exhibited that have gotten them into trouble with their parents, their friends, the school, and even the law. And when I sit down, and truly think about it — at my most stressed times — when I let it all get to me, when I let it all sink in, when this isn’t “just a job” for me, I realize that each one of my clients have one thing in common. They all have the same thing in common that the rest of us do. No matter how much we want to deny that we are “nothing” like the clients I see, that we are healthier, that we can go without seeking counsel, that we don’t need help, we all really just want one thing. How we get it, how we seek it, how we come to fight for it — those are the things that make us differ from each other.

Because you see, all the kids I work with — let go of their ages, their sexes, their behaviors and their diagnoses — all want the same thing: they want to be connected to love. To be genuinely connected to love. I think it comes from the very core of our very existence. When I question whether or not the human race has instincts like every other species, I always come to this conclusion: our instinct is to love. We bow into this world naked as the earth made us, and we cry for the need of attention, connectedness, comfort, nurture. We cry for our mothers who made us from scratch. We cry for the kisses and the croons. And while our cries may sound desperate, despairing, heartbreaking, it is the natural law of our bodies. We cry for love. We cry for our mothers. We cry for the blood that used to connect us with hers.

I don’t think we ever stop crying for it. All the kids I work with, whether or not they are in foster care, all want to belong to a mother, a father, a family. They all want to know that no matter what happens, no matter what they do, someone will always have their back, someone will always love them unconditionally. That basic need is always there. And when these kids become parents, the wounds bleed over into a new mode. The hurt shapes itself into a new form. The parents become desperate for that intrinsic, first need of love, and in turn, they don’t know how to give it to the next generation. And in turn, we hurt because that’s all we know how to do. We hurt because we remember feeling hurt, and we were never really reconciled in any other way. We hurt because we came into this world hurting. We hurt for love.

Each day, I go through my hours working to the very core of my soul to make others feel loved. Because that’s how I feel loved. I struggle with relationships, just like everyone else. I struggle with friendships, I struggle with what’s right and what’s wrong. I struggle with those “gray areas” where even when I feel I am doing the right thing, it still feels wrong. Each day, I struggle with being good, because I want the same thing that everyone else wants. I am no different from the clients I see. I am no different than you, and you are no different than me. I struggle with wanting to know, genuinely, that I am loved. Each day, I go through my hours hoping that people see it as real when I ask them “How are you?” because I truly mean to want to know the real answer to the question. Each day, I go through trying to exude the love that seems to be missing in this world. The love that never seems to be enough to hold us all together, to stop us from hurting each other, to stop us from hurting ourselves. We hurt, and we hurt big. We hurt long. And then we become defensive, we fear, we knock each other out. We scrape and we bind and we cry and we hurt again. And the pain starts all over, until someone, anyone, finally realizes that the only way to stop hurting, stop fearing, stop crying, stop screaming… is to love. Love freely, love openly, love without abandon, love without defenses, love even if it feels scary, love even if it has risks, love as if our lives depend on it.

Because really, what do we have to lose in our vulnerability? We hold back love, but when we do that, all we lose is more love. And that is my dream, my wish, my goal, my lot in life. My task is to love without abandon. Even when my heart is broken, my task is to go on loving. Even when the tears come and I am angry and fallen and broken into a million pieces of regret and despair, I must go on loving. Even when it feels hard to love, I will love. Because that’s how we fix ourselves. That’s how we fix this world. We love. We put aside science, religion, beliefs, prejudice, perspectives. We strip the layers off to find just one true thing: love.

That’s what we all have in common. We love.