Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some notion of that something which you were also born desiring?
That desire that remains after the fluctuation of louder passions, year by year from childhood to old age, that you are looking for, watching for, listening for.
All the other things that have ever deeply affected your soul have been hints of it. If it should really become manifest you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’
It is the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds. If we lose this, we lose all.
from "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis