That's a conversation between Mulder and Scully from one of my favorite episodes of The X-Files. When Mulder mentions the "inextricable relationships", it's not clear who he is talking about. He could be talking about Scully. He could be talking about Alex Krycek. But I think he's talking about everyone in his life. Everyone in everyone's lives. Everyone we come into contact with changes us in some way. No matter how randomly the enter our lives, or what the odds were that we'd never meet them, they were put into our lives for a reason. There are no accidents.

When we examine the relationships in our lives, we normally focus on those most important to us. We focus on those that take up the largest part of our lives. Our family, our good friends, that one person who we want to be closer to than we are. And those are all very important relationships. Without my family, without Julia and Matt and Amber and Anthony, I'd be lost. I wouldn't be who I am.

But these days I've been thinking about the more peripheral people in my life. People who I didn't really choose to be around (the way I choose to be with my friends and family), but who affect me all the same. Tonight is my last shift at my restaurant. When we close tonight, we close forever. And suddenly I will be missing many relationships in my life. People who I work with every day, who I see more than I see my friends and family, will become absent in my life. We might run into each other time and again, but we'll never again have what we have now. I don't work with anyone who I'd classify as "important" in my life. But they have changed me. Affected me. And if I think about it, the odds that I'd even meet them at all were pretty slim.

I quit my last job because I had a new job lined up. A job that was NOT waiting tables. That job didn't work out, through no fault of my own. Left with a need for immediate income, I got a job waiting tables. It wasn't even my first choice restaurant. I only applied because it was next door to the restaurant where I really wanted to work and I figured, "what the hell?"

Now, seven months later, I'm being forced to leave. Forced to leave a job I didn't really want in the first place, but that I grew to love. Forced to leave people that I'd never choose to be around, but who have somehow become important to me.

There's Cameron, who is so cute and sweet. Always with a smile on his face, making me feel better just looking at how happy he is. When Cameron walks past someone he almost always touches them. Not in any sort of inappropriate way, just a hand on the arm or the back as a way of reassurance or as a greeting. I do not really like physical contact, but being around Cameron and the innocence in his touch almost made me crave that personal connection with someone.

John is a huge thug. Well, he wants to be a huge thug. What he really is is a skinny little white boy who likes to rap. When I first met John, I did not like him. Not one little bit. I thought he was a punk. And maybe he is a punk. He's certainly not anyone I'd be friends with. But John is very reliable. Unlike almost everyone else at work, John always shows up for his shifts. He's always on time and he recognizes that his actions affect other people. He taught me that I shouldn't judge people based on their punk factor. Punk kids are people too :-)

Then there is Shane. Shane is about the most charming boy I know. To look at him you wouldn't think he's all that physically attractive, but he could probably sweet talk me into anything. Shane always smells like alcohol and he probably can't remember the last time a day went by that he didn't drink. I learned almost the opposite from Shane that I learned from John. Unlike John, I liked Shane straight off. I liked him a lot. His sense of humor and his charm and his laugh are all very endearing. But Shane is extremely irresponsible. He's late all the time, he's almost always drunk at work, and he often leaves without doing all of his work. Cute, charming, attractive Shane runs a distant second to Thug John in the work department.

Carlos is a chef who I never would have imagined missing when I left the restaurant. But I will. I'll miss him tremendously. He tries to be mean to the servers because he wants to be taken seriously. He gets aggravated that I see through his charade. I see that underneath that hard exterior is a man that cares about people. Now that he realizes that I know the real him, he'll yell at a server and then give me a delighted smile. Because he knows that I know that he doesn't mean it. That doesn't mean he's nice to me, far from it. He gives me just as much of a hard time as he gives everyone else. But it doesn't bother me. And the other day I was very upset at work, and all pretense fell away as Carlos made sure I was ok and then visibly got angry at what had upset me.

I could go on and on about the people at work and what they mean to me. I could write 500,000 words on it, most likely. And not all of those words would be as kind as what I've already written.

The relationships in our lives are neither accidental nor somehow in our control. I didn't choose to meet these people, and I'm not choosing to leave them. But I'm forever changed for having been around them for such a brief time.