“You’re really lucky.”

That’s what I was told. Sometimes it takes someone looking in at something from the outside to take that something and thrust if forward so you see it for the first time.

But I did see. I am lucky, if only for that one reason, in that one instance. We spend too much time looking for love. What happens when you lose something — say, your mobile phone or your keys? What begins as a calm, methodical search of places you most likely left the thing you cannot find turns irrational and feverish once the misplaced thing isn’t easily discovered in any of the most likely places. You’ll start looking in cupboards and cookie jars and boxes covered in a quarter-inch of dust, places that thing couldn’t possibly be. But you look anyway.

Of course in that case you know what you’re looking for. You know what it looks like, why you need it, and what it will do for you once you’ve found it. Not so with love, and yet for some reason we look for it in similar ways. We have this strange mental picture of what we think love will look like when we find it, why we need it, and what it will do for us once it’s found.

It’s no wonder we’re so often confused, or unsure of how exactly we’re meant to feel. Because I believe it often happens we find something and don’t realize what we’ve found is what we really needed — perhaps moreso than whatever it was we thought we were looking for. As Gotham found Batman, so it seems that we, too, may not find the love we (think we) need, but we find the love we deserve.

I know because I’ve found it, and it looks nothing like what I’d have expected or imagined or written breathless poetry about. I’m lucky. From the time we are small children, we are driven to share, and to find people to share things with. We call these people “friends,” for lack of a better term, and throughout our lives we collect people who will appreciate our little discoveries. This reality is the basis of an entire internet industry; it’s what social networking is all about — webs of like-minded people who want to share things with each other. Very occasionally, if you’re open to it, you’re lucky enough to find someone who transcends the context of your initial interactions and crosses through into nearly every facet of your existence.

When you find such a person, and know them for an extended period of time, to the point that they become like a part of you, a word like “friend” becomes unfairly limiting. I know because I’ve found just such a person. I’m lucky, and I feel comfortable enough in speaking for him as well on this matter to say he probably counts himself lucky too (though he’ll probably deny it, as would I, if pressed). We talk nearly every day, on any and everything. We’ve had the deepest, seriousest discussions about deep, serious issues touching on life and the living thereof. We’ve also had some of the stupidest conversations you could ever imagine, the both of us doubled over laughing about things I doubt most people would find funny at all. I’m pretty sure a new entry has been added to the definition of “had to be there” especially for us two.

He helps me with things I’m utterly clueless about without a second thought. I’ve tried to thank him in countless ways, but he takes it in stride. He lifts me up when I’m down and helps me find clarity when my vision is particularly myopic. He probably knows more about me than any other living person, but more importantly, he knows me. There’s not a thing of any significance that happens to me that he doesn’t know about, because whenever anything happens or whenever I see something funny or disturbing or ridiculous or confusing, my first thought is to share it with him. We’re like children on a playground, just bursting to share discoveries with each other (and I stole that comparison from him actually).

There’s not much I wouldn’t do for him, and there’s not much he hasn’t done for me. Romantic love is so fragile and fleeting, and its internal volatility places it, at least for me, as one of love’s lesser forms. I have Tumblr to thank for one of the strongest relationships I’ve ever known, one I know will last a long time, if for no other reason than I just can’t imagine my life without him in it. I’m a better person for knowing him, and for having his love and support — even when he disagrees with me or thinks I’m being ridiculous (which happens far more often than I’m willing to admit).

I’m still trying to figure out how the hell my keys ended up clean on the other side of the globe, however. I guess I’m lucky I’ve a good friend over there who’ll send them to me — as he’s done more than once. I’ll admit I’ve had to rewrite my own definition of the word “friend” so it encompasses what Luke and I have. Perhaps I should expand my definition of “lucky” as well.