As I stand there, shins against the hard wooden rungs, trying to keep my balance while I furiously scrape the paint from an old wooden barn, my mind wanders off on a tangent.

Like each spider that scurries away from my daunting blade, we all as humans, weave a web of relationships. I find it funny and fairly odd how they come to be, and with a bit of thought, we can re-trace the steps of how they came to be.

Surrounded with familiar scenery and a sense of belonging, I find myself in the midst of essential strangers. Trying to figure out how I ended up in such a place, I revealed but one of my many webs...

It was sunny out, as it was most days in the Spring. Campus was crawling with students enjoying the weather, zipping from class to lunch and back; and finally finding the time to hang out on the quad. And there they were...those four girls in their assorted colors of Boston Red Sox hats.

"You can say hi." I told myself. "What have you got to lose?"

Well my dignity and shred of confidence were at stake. What if they took those away from me? I never said hi. Not once. They were just intimidating. All four of them, attractive and popular...not really where I fit in, so I watched each and every time as they made their way from the dorm to the cafeteria. They took their place on the far end of the dining area, while I quietly found my place under the radar.

That is the way it went. It was normal and I grasped the fact that I would graduate without getting the chance to know them.

Well that's what I thought anyway...

I had a terrible college advisor. For whatever reason, he had no idea what grade I was in and was always giving me incorrect information. As do most schools, my college required that I complete an internship in order to graduate. He neglected to give me the paperwork on time, and explained that I could do it "next year".

Well, that was true, but "this year" was really when I should have done it. Next year it was though, and I found myself living in an empty dorm with just two soccer teams on campus. Lucky for me I had been in the same class as one of the women's team players, and we had become good friends. That was my in. While all of my friends were still home enjoying the last week of summer, I at least got to go have a couple beers with some of the women's soccer team.

It was a fairly beneficial trade off! The school itself at a 70-30 ratio in favor of us guys, but my odds were sweetened to a 90-10 ratio. I took a liking to one of the girls. She was more down to earth than the rest of them, and she seemed to have some kind of interest in me too. Bonus! Unbelievably, she was one of the aforementioned hat girls.

We spent a lot of time together that week and now I live with her permanently, but through our time together at college she gave me the opportunity to meet each one of those girls that I was so intimidated by.

Turns out...they were all roommates as well as best friends, which meant that they all partied together and now that I was in like Flynn, I got to party with all of them too. On top of that, two of them ended up being in most of my classes that year, and we were able to build our own relationships.

This is where my web begins to spin...

So, my girlfriend and her best friend moved in together after they graduated. It worked during college, so it was an easy decision to continue living together after college.

Either way, they moved to a town near where my sister attended college. In the natural order of things, my sister had become fond of my girlfriend and vice versa. Since they were now only a short drive away from each other, their visits became quite frequent.

What started as a courtesy of getting along because they "should", blossomed into a strong and real friendship. It took time to get used to it, but it is a pretty cool thing when everything clicks like that.

By association, my sister began building a friendship with my girlfriend's best friend, who at this point was one of my good friends as well. In fact, I was even getting to know her mother...solely through drunk-dials. A combination of my girlfriend, her best friend, and her best friend's mother screaming into the phone, repeating everything several times was nothing short of entertaining every time it happened.

The web spins thicker...

Sitting around the bonfire, sipping on my cold brew, I am surrounded by friends and strangers; people I'm meeting for the first time. The fleeting beers put me at ease and the night goes on as we celebrate our country's independence.

Resorting to our tents, we say goodnight and desperately seek many, many more hours than we have so brilliantly left ourselves. Dawn approaches and we struggle to move, half-regretting our decisions from the prior night.

The incentive to rise is quickly remembered and we head to the picnic tables where breakfast is being served. Now, when I say breakfast, I don't mean we all got a plate and that was that...No, it was a cookout style breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, fish, bagels...anything and everything you could possibly think of.

I was welcome to anything we wanted, and the kicker is, I had just met these folks the day before. They were nothing short of kind and generous, and made me feel as welcome as if it were my own home. These warm people happened to be the grandparents of my girlfriend's best friend. You know, one of the Boston High Hat girls and my sister's newest friend.

Tangled up yet?

I had a couple scheduled interviews in the next state over. It was where we wanted to move so I was trying to line up a job. The problem was, they weren't on the same day and it was too far to drive back and forth each time.

Our options were a hotel room or stay with someone we knew. Well we didn't know anyone in the area...well not really. It just so happens that where we wanted to move was the same place that we had enjoyed that delicious breakfast.

The best friend's grandparents were not there though. It was the winter and they were down south enjoying the warmth. Yet, we made the request to stay at their home, and they graciously allowed us to spend over a week living at their house. It was an unbelievable act of generosity as we were just slight acquaintances.

We of course treated their home with respect, and as a gesture of thanks and compensating for our expenses, we treated them to dinner at a local restaurant. It was because of this act of human-good that we were able to make our move to a new state without any issues.

The white fades back in as I feel the vibrations of a little magic box in my pocket. On the other end is my mother telling me of her current expedition. Her and her friend were out sailing with my father, uncle, sister, and yep, you guessed it...my girlfriend's best friend.

She was there on a boat with my entire family...with no direct connection except through my girlfriend and through me. What an onlooker may see as somewhat strange felt completely normal. It was as if she was an everyday part of the family.

I chuckle and hang up, only to look behind me to the house I utilized in my time of need. While my girlfriend's best friend was out sailing with my mom, dad, sister, uncle, and mom's friend...I was standing on a ladder scraping paint off of my girlfriend's, best friend's, grandparent's barn.

Grinning, I resumed my work and was thankful to be helping out the same people who had helped me so kindly. And, as I rewind through that entire web of relationships, I thought of HubPages and added one final relationship to this tangled mess.

One of my favorite and most devoted fans ironically happens to be the daughter of my girlfriend's, best friend's, grandparents; whom sit playing dominoes not 100ft from where I stood.

We all build relationships. Some of them happen very normally, but on those occasions where you have to stop and ask, "How did that happen?" , it is fun to untangle the web.

"I feel like i am spinning, all around the summer, and the winter comes and another storm, and it falls, well it falls, still it falls apart around me." - Jason Mraz

Appropriate play on words...except that my web is not falling apart around me. No, instead it continues to build all the time, which is why I am here once again, adding to this Hub. It's been a while since I've written anything, but the giant-hairy spiders that so conveniently placed themselves in the path of my brush reminded me of this Hub; so I decided now was as good a time as any to continue.

So the parent's of my girlfriend's college roommate's mother, whom I helped around their house have many friends. And, after seeing the work I had done, one of their friends asked for my phone number so that I could help him out too. So now, I stand atop a mountain, looking at an amazing view of more mountains, and again have the opportunity to think about the relationships I am developing.

The man whom I am working for is married to my girlfriend's-college roommate's-grandparent's- -daughter's-best friend's-oldest sister, who I have also met on a couple of occasions. Once in the middle of the street while walking my new puppy...in a new town. These siblings also happen to be the sisters of a man with two first names whom I met while golfing with "the daughter" and her son. (If you can't keep up, you should start over...this all makes sense...really!)

After observing countless familiar encounters in just one place, I couldn't help but wonder how in the world one person could know so many people. Now, however, I am beginning to decipher how it all unfolds, and am realizing that I am not so far outside of this unbelievable web or relationships.

Remember that Delicious Celebration I mentioned? Well that is a yearly event, and this year I showed up late. As I pulled up to a driveway packed with cars, trucks, and SUV's, I found a spot and gathered myself before stepping out. With kids running amok, dogs chasing each other, and people as far as the eye can see, it was a bit overwhelming...especially because I really only knew a handful of people at this shin dig.

Before I was even fully out of my vehicle, a woman I had never before seen in my life, walked out of the house and said, "Are you Craig?" to which I replied somewhat perturbed, "Yes I am." After introducing herself, I soon learned that this would be my new neighbor! She and her husband discovered that my girlfriend and I had bought a house nearby and just happened to be at this party. What are the odds? Well, that isn't the best question, because with the people I have met around here, it seems as if the odds are always good.

The mere fact that she was so excited for us to be moving in was shocking to me. Shocking in a good way of course. This woman had never met me, but welcomed me to the neighborhood with open arms, and future dinner plans! Simply incredible.

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but it seems as if the universe has brought me to the nicest place on the planet, and has connected me to all of the right people. I can only hope that my web continues to spin, and that I can even fully understand it!