I just had the most disconcerting conversation or perhaps disconcerting isn't the right way to describe it- conversations with this old friend always are. The story is old- we met when we were 16 , were in the same class. He dated - serially. I remained choosy. We became friends. The kind that spoke and heard things in each other that no one else could access. And in college, we went separate ways. And I discovered that I was in love with him. We flirted for a while. And some sense of self preservation kept me from moving forward. I was right. We weren't meant to be. The love and hurt faded. We stopped talking.

Until a phone call a year later. We spoke for three hours. Then a silence for another year. It's been like that for the last five years. One isolated phone call. Long stretches with no contact in between. And when the conversation happens-it carries on for hours. Its never a smooth start. We catch up on the unimaginative get-back-in-touch questions.. who are you dating? , how's work? ..and after that initial clearing of polite debris, we really talk.

Honest, real and out of the ordinary. The existential uncertainties and exploration between old friends. There are no sacred spaces, no hurt or triumph left alone. We talk as I wish people could about the daily despairs and highs of living; about the future and the traps of our idealism. And we continue to see each other as we were then, as if life hadn't changed anything in us. :)

And I sleep, touched by the romance of this interlude. And always with this rose-tinted picture of him, which has little to do with reality and everything to do with this little bubble we created.

But he is in my city for a week and wants to meet. I am reluctant. I wonder if seeing him will spoil the whimsy and anticipation his annual phone call brings. What do you think?