Knowing you found good thing is everything

Hey Carolyn: My story: Boy meets girl out in D.C., instant chemistry. On first real date, girl admits to boy that she already has plans for moving to NYC in a couple weeks to attend school for about a year, but that she likes boy too. Girl postpones moving plans a bit, spending an additional two months with boy, who continues to fall madly in love with girl. But, boy really wants girl to pursue professional dreams, and is totally supportive, while admitting he will miss her.

Girl is now moving in less than a month. Boy has never been a big fan of long-distance situations, but has never felt this way before, even though, at 35, he probably should be old enough to know better! Girl is 27. Is it better to sever things so that both can fully enjoy everything their respective cities have to offer? – Matt

Boy, oh boy. Boy boy boy.

You have met someone for whom you have feelings that you’ve never felt before, and you are 35. And you’d sever things? Over being a three-hour train ride apart? For a year?

You must be reading advice to younger readers or something.

If you were 21, the never-felt-this-before standard would still be significant, but you’d have to weigh it against the fact that as a new adult you’re going to feel a whole lot of things you’ve never felt before.

But at the threshold of middle age, you should in fact know yourself better. A few months of knowing someone is nothing, but knowing when you’ve found a good thing is everything.

Besides, at any age, there isn’t much sense in throwing away a perfectly good toaster just because there’s a chance it might break. Have the nerve to tell her you care enough to want to keep seeing her, then have the nerve to see where it goes.

Dear Carolyn: My baby’s starting day care, and my husband is upset with how upset I am about it. I know it’s the right choice, I feel good about the day care, intellectually I’m all there … but my heart aches. I’m pretty sure this is natural, and I’ll get over it, although the first day (week, month) will be hard. How can I respond to my husband’s insistence that if everything were fine, I wouldn’t be upset? I think he’s nervous, too, and looking to me to make it all right. – Bye Bye Baby

If you love your baby, fully, viscerally and in other ways you barely understand, then everything is fine.

And when everything is fine, you’re supposed to feel at least some trepidation at the thought of spending time away from your baby, especially when you’re entrusting the care to someone new.

Sounds like your husband’s the one who isn’t all there intellectually. But you don’t need to tell him I said that.

Especially since you’re probably right to put a sympathetic spin on his stubborn loss of composure. Assure him that it’s normal for a baby to adjust quickly, for a mother to worry anyway, for a father to rub his wife’s feet.