According to a classmate from my school in Cebu, you can fit the Philippines 2.8 times in Texas. The entire state of Texas has the population of 20 million, which is close to the population of Metro Manila alone on weekdays.
Lubbock may not be cosmopolitan like the much bigger cities in America but it has given me what I have none of in the Philippines: space. Sure, I am hundreds of miles away from what many people usually think of what America is: the glitz of LA, Chicago, NY, Miami, Dallas, San Francisco.
But, the sky feels like a sky here in Lubbock.
The Manila sky is wafting in pollution, ugly skyscrapers, uglier billboards with the occasional sneers from people of various social mobilities. And whenever I look up to the sky in Manila, I am always brought back to the ground with sounds of the collapses of humanity such as videoke on the goddamn street or screams from entitled brats as they stumble out of a club thinking this is their best life ever or the snared traffic that slithers around Manila like a demented anaconda.
I remember months ago, Nemcy said "iba ang blue ng sky diyan no? Matingkad. Malakas." (The sky there has a different blue, right? Bright. Intense.) Those are words I do not use to describe my life.
The Lubbock sky is telling me something. time for a different shade of blue.