It's a Small World Afterall

Sometimes I find life to be a big game of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Honestly, if I tried hard enough, I bet I could connect everyone I know to him. Between meeting new people who know old people I know, or even the, "You're from Jersey? Where in Jersey? I'm from Jersey too!" It is a small, small world.

When I first moved to the Boston area, a fresh college graduate with a "great" job, I did my banking with a small, local bank...Watertown Savings. Basking in the glow of my first real pay check I headed to that small bank to make my first big deposit. I stepped up to the teller, and handed her the first of the small fortune I was bound to amass. She took it and looked at the name, then looked at me, then looked at the check, and then look at me, tilted her head to the side, furrowed her brow, and looked harder at me.

"Is there a problem?" I asked.

"You're Kristen Dattoli?" she replied.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Ah, yeah, I'm sure. Why?"

As it turned out, there was another Kristen Dattoli who grew up in the area with whom this teller went to school. Clearly, I was not the Kristen Dattoli that she was familiar with. However, Kristen Dattoli I was and so she deposited my money for me.

Fast forward nine years and I open my Facebook account to find that I have a new friend request. Really? It is sort of exciting to see who has sought me out. It was, Kristen Dattoli. Bizarre. But even weirder is the fact that this Kristen Dattoli who requested my cyber friendship not only shares the same name as me, but the same birthday. That's right, she was born April 14, three years earlier than me, but seriously, the same name and the same birthday? Before accepting this "friendship" I asked if is she thought it was possible that we have the same name and birthday...she too "appeared" to be shocked by this. This extra commonality that we shared led her to ask all sorts of questions to see what else we have in common. She revealed to me that she grew up in the Boston area, etc. Upon reading this, I shared my banking story with her and inquired if she was that Kristen Dattoli. And as fate would have it....she is! Nine years I have known about this other Kristen Dattoli who I now know shares a birthday with me and honestly if and when I ever care about my hair enough to take a shower and get a proper hair style, she and I don't look too far off from each other.

There's so much that we share, that it's time we're aware, it's a small world after all.