Not being part of a social networking site gives you a lot of time to do lots of other useless things. I found this. Never posted it before. It's from February, 2012.

Your past is like rain. When I think of you and your family and your friends and your community, it makes me think of rain. Of light showers and the smell of wet soil.

Whereas my home, my ancestral home (although there isn’t any of the grandeur that the term ‘ancestral’ demands... though I suppose it has its mystique) reminds me of sand. Hot sand burning underfoot. Sometimes cool sand turning into mud that you can sculpt. But you know it won’t last forever. Prickles. Tickles. Keep your eyes shut or it’ll make them burn. Appropriate for the dry sand storms that we have right before the rains every time I’m at home. A forgotten palace in the midst of squalor, with denizens living in the old past. So Marquez.

I have to let you in on an unhealthy secret. I wither away when you leave me. I know our fate is sealed, and I know I’ll take it. But right now, I feel too tied to you. If it happens again, I won’t shed any tears. I’ll just wither away. My insides feel empty, my skin deadens. It really isn’t healthy, I know.

It feels incomplete. Like I was suddenly interrupted by a doorbell ringing twice, fast. It used to be the happiest sound.