Good Friends

There is a saying that Good friends are better than gold, and who says you can have just one?  or is that potato chips?  In my life growing up, I had one very good friend, I saved her life when we were small kids.  I was at the public pool and I of course couldn't swim, I had to stand on the shallow side of the ropes, if I went on the other side it was on tippy toes and very risky if the pool was busy.  So I was standing neck deep in water and I could see this girl struggling to keep her face above water, but she was on the other side of the ropes.  Her braids floated past me, she had very long hair and I grabbed them and reeled her in.  We became best friends forever, even before the term BFF.  Turns out she just moved in down the block from my house, and that sealed the deal.  There was nothing that kept us apart and nothing we didn't share.She saved my life many years later, after my first divorce I was a shell of a person, I had no self esteem, no identity and she swooped into my life and rescued me, I too owe her my life.  I got married, she got married, she moved a little further and we kind of went separate ways as lives do, but there is one thing I know for sure, if I called her today and said "I need you"  she would be there and I for her.   Well we still keep in contact at Holidays and so on and I thought I would never find a friend so dear as her, but I was wrong.  I have found more, I have friends that I can call on, depend on, ask for help or just to listen.  It has taken me a really long time to let someone in that close.  It may have been because I worked with men all the time that I wasn't exposed to very many women.  I have good men friends but not that I could call on and meet for lunch, they are all married and there are certain boundaries of respect, and I respect that.  Sometimes I just don't know how I got so lucky to have so many good friends.