Ever hear that saying "Finders keepers, losers weepers"? That pretty much applies to domain names. Theres no reason why you shouldn't renew your domain MONTHS before it expires. The only thing you can do is to email the new owner, explain what happened and wait for an email back from him/her containing at least one of the following:
1) An extremely inflated purchase price for the domain.
2) Uncontrolable laughter.
3) A request for you to "kiss his tooshie".
Also, do you own .net and .org? Having those might help you too.
Good luck!
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