Ship Me To Venus

This is how small my world is.

One of my officemates says that her father and brother-in-law worked for my grandfather's security agencies decades ago. Another second aunt is also her friend, and some second cousins are her inaanak(s).

At the career talk I gave at my grade school yesterday, one of my fellow speakers claimed he was Myrza's first cousin.

At the cafe I like to go to on Tomas Morato, I keep bumping into an old schoolmate whose name I couldn't remember. It wasn't until last night that he told me who he was. Now, he's under the same boss I used to work for at ABS-CBN.

And it turns out Gabby and I go to the same dermatologist.

Manila's not a city. It's a town square, where everyone's related to everyone else.

There are no six degrees of separation here, only two or three at the most. Any mistakes you make will be known by all the world even before you step out of the house. If you have had a bad break-up, move to another country if you never want to be reminded of him/her. Every lover you have ever had will hook up with your neighbor, your work colleague, your friend-of-a-friend, your schoolmate, your aunt's sister's husband's daughter, or even the boy with whom you shared an ice cream cone, on a rusted swing many years ago, when you still sucked on your thumb in secret.

It's comforting to know you really aren't alone here, but at the same time, you sometimes wish you could start with a clean slate. To be able to say, here I am, no history, no past, I have only my body and my mind, with which I can carve new destinies from, live new lives.

For Manilenos, it looks like the only way to really start over is to move to Venus. But who can do without oxygen? Here on Earth, it's simply a matter of dealing with the past gracefully, with finesse. In this context, Katherine Hepburn's famous proclamation makes perfect sense - the key to happiness is having a sense of humor, and a very short memory,