January 07, 2005 - 7:57 p.m. I think I encountered finally in different circumstances what you once mentioned; I discovered that conflict with the past and the present and the people therein. Once upon a time I liked him and he liked me too, but the circumstances didn't work out. And now it feels like unfinished business whenever I talk to him, which is admittedly infrequently because to enter into conversation is to acknowledge that we never really got off the ground, that I wish we would have, that I fear I missed my opportunity. I want to put him in the past like a good dream in which I was suddenly awoken and never given the chance to finish. I want to just remember our happy moments. I miss how we used to talk on the phone about him and me and how we saw life nearly every night until we finally had to go to sleep. I remember the way he looked at me with confidence and vulnerability competing for control, the way he ran his hand caressingly over my hair and across my cheek. He thought I was interesting, and I could never understand why someone so incredibly fascinating would think that someone so naive and boring and plain worth his attention. But he did. And then it all fell apart when we gave into our private though similar fears about the present and the past. And now when we talk, we talk about us and how we burned out on the launch pad. Last night we went through our brief saga again and in the end he sounded so final and frustrated with his "See you around, Kari." I care about him. If we were in the same place, I would be fatally attracted to him. But we aren't. And I've got other wonderful events to tend to. His memories bear an odd form of grief for what could have happened. I've got to look to now, to the future rather than the past. I understand now what you meant. ...before & after...