The greatest fear.

Okay, okay. So I used to say that my greatest fear is of needles. I had a horrible incident the first time I had my blood drawn (I was eleven and yes, I'll spare you the details). Because of this, I'm still squeamish some fifteen years later. Even as I type this, my knees are buckling even though I'm securely resting in my office chair.

There are the average girlish fears too. Spiders. Hate those. Thank goodness I live in a new house and the spider sightings have been few and far between. Snakes. Not a fan. There were plenty of snakes near my house when I was a child (as Jeff said when he visited me, "You lived all of the way out here?" as if I lived in Africa or Siam or something). I hate mowing the lawn for this reason even though I have yet to see a snake at my new house. I get a bit seasick and I am uneasy in dark, deep water.

The true fear, as I wrote about a few years ago in another blog, is loneliness. At first I thought it was simply this fear of being along, of waking up at age thirty or forty-whatever alone except for n cats (where hopefully n <>

It's not that, really. Perhaps it is my ever-increasing wisdom. But that's not it.

What we all crave, what we all fear, really, is human connection. It is to look into the eyes of someone else and know that he or she understands you. Let me separate this from all other sorts of attraction, because I feel it is all rolled into one.

First we have the easiest to define -- physical. Must I explain this? You probably get the drift. It takes an average of four seconds for me to make this sort of decision, and, unfortunately, it's relatively final.

Then there is the mental attraction, driven by conversation. Is someone able to excite and engage me? Are they able to banter back and forth, speak intelligently about this or that or the other?

These two properties are easy to find and even are the case in one person. But it is that third type of compatibility, a sort of emotional attraction, that is so tough to find. It is this overwhelming feeling that someone actually understands you on a level deeper than words can express. It seems, for me at least, that so few people know me as well as I would like, but getting to know people can be such a bother on one level or another so it is something I understand.

I never was able to fully separate this sort of attraction out in this manner and this is because it is the hardest to describe, the most delicate, yet the most enduring. Have you ever had that experience where someone has looked into your eyes and you know that they are actually looking deep into your being, your soul? One can hardly say something in this particular moment because it would break the connection that you feel. It seems too sacred to mention, really.

It is this vulnerability, this sort of expose, a connection like this that I have determined I (and many others) truly crave. It made me realize how shallow some of my "friendships" really are and helped me to recognize that those people in my life I feel most connected with might be completely unaware of it.

And that's where I think I might lose some of you. Does this sound familiar? Can you relate?

How does one even have a sort of discussion like this? Can you, really? Or is it something never worth mentioning?

Deep thoughts these days. No better place to share them than here...

xoxo
Sarah