Degrees of friendship

I am a lucky woman, I have a solid set of friends from grade school that carried me through my high school years.  I have a solid set of friends from college who helped me form into the woman I am today. I now have a solid group of friends that I met as an adult.  Each pocket of friendships are different, separate and unique. I wonder how I got so lucky to have so many groups of wonderful friends in my life.  A statement that my father made to me when I was young springs to mind.  I am an only child and my father told me 'you don't have siblings so your friends will need to become your family'  It has been true my whole life.  I have gravitated toward people who are true and good and trustworthy.  There are some common elements in the friendships that I have, I am the tallest of all my friends (not a big shock) there is always a friend in the group of friends that is closer, that I confide in more.  However each member of the friendship group is uniquely special and we fit together nicely in a groove that only we share.  An overwhelming theme in both highschool and college groups was a protective mode, I am often unaware of how I am seen by members of the opposite sex and those two groups would run interference when I was slow to realize that someone was hitting on me.  This trait did not seem to make it into the adult friendships although I wish it had.  All three groups had fairly similar political and religious similarities.  But the theme who defines every person in all three groups and the people in my life who don't fit nicely in a group is caring for others.  A giving heart, standing up for the little guy.  That is the most endearing quality I have ever found in the human race.  Thank you to all of you who enrich my life, make me a better person and complete my family.