I am blessed to have childhood friends

Last night I had a mini reunion with a group of friends from high school who now live in the south Florida area.I grew up in a small town in upstate New York and you knew everyone, somehow even coming from a very small town we had very open minds. We grew up with single parents,  gay people, transvestites, inter racial couples, you name it but we were a loving community that accepted  everyone , now back in the late 60s and 70s and living in a small town was rare! Most of us went to kindergarten through college together and stayed in touch even after that.I have been blessed to have the same friends since elementary school and with the invention of Facebook have been blessed to reconnect with many others.I am an only child so for me my friends are the family I choose for myself and I am a loyal and fierce friend, once you are my friend you will be my friend for life, call me a 4 am I will be there,  a shoulder to cry on no problem I am here, there is nothing I will not do for you, you are my family and that is that!so during my marriage I didn't keep in touch with a lot of people, it was hard enough trying to act lie everything was alright there was only so many times I could act that good and it hurt me to remember such wonderful times in my life and know how horrible my life was now, it would remind me of that girl I no longer was. As I started to find myself I started to reconnect and these friends reinforced in me that yes I still was the same girl just with more wisdom and stronger for surviving all I went through. These friends were there for me encouraging me , helping me standing behind me when I didn't think I could do it! So when I have these mini reunions I know how truly blessed I am that I still have this great group of childhood friends that know what I am talking about7t when I say "the well"  "Dillion hill" or "bungalow colonies" , they know who is the cop on Broadway or the pizza parlor I don't have to explain , they also realize how blessed we were to grow up there during those times.So to all my incredible childhood friends, thank  you for so many wonderful memories and for so many more to come!