I like how moody this game is, and the open-endedness of it. At first I was afraid of getting the connections "wrong" and not advancing but I realize this isn't that kind of game, and you're free to sort out your thoughts in different ways, which I like quite a bit. The setting's a great way to establish a natural countdown without outright just putting a clock into the game too!
I did notice that, even though I could mostly arrange the words however I liked, there seemed to be a few thoughts that refused to connect together. I'm not sure if that's a deliberate choice, but some of them seemed like they would make logical sense, like "I learned to live there..." "...thanks to you" seem like they could be a valid connected pair, but they refused to pair up.