Soul mates eager to connect

DEAR AMY >> I’m a 50-year-old freelance graphic designer. My income has completely dried up, and so I recently moved in with my mother

(Dad died nine months ago).

My ex-wife is in a serious relationship. She lives a half-hour away from me. Our youngest daughter, 17, is special needs and lives with her most of the time. I get our daughter every other weekend and every Wednesday. She will start staying with me an extra day each week (Tuesdays). This schedule works for us.

My girlfriend lives two hours away in New York City and just got a fulltime job. She has a sister in the city that she cannot move away from, so she can’t move to live with me.

My girlfriend and I don’t see how we can maintain any type of relationship with the responsibilities I have with my youngest daughter. I would move to Brooklyn and could get work in the city in a heartbeat, but I won’t be able to see my daughter as often.

At this point in my life, I don’t want to lose my soul mate! Do you have any suggestion?

DEAR DEVOTED >> You have experienced several very important transitions over the last year: your father’s death, your own professional reversals, your decision to move back home, and your new co-parenting plan.

Life tends to happen in overlapping stages, not in discreet and separate incidents or episodes. You have a lot of imponderables stacked up right now, and your anxiety is directing you elsewhere.

I suggest that if you are financially able, you should not make any sudden moves, and devote this next six months to your family relationships, staying where you are and concentrating on your duties as a father and a son. Your girlfriend is starting a new job; she will need to devote time and attention to her career. If you are living two hours from New York, you should be able to visit her for long weekends. You can get the lay of the land and make a longer-term plan.

Your daughter will soon be of an age where her choices and options will change, and you should be close by to help guide her through.

DEAR AMY >> I’m responding to “Bothered in CO,” the family whose paleskinned daughter was upset by comments about her skin tone.

I have dark hair and an olive complexion. My kids’ dad is pale and has light hair.

Our two daughters take after their dad.

One day, just the girls and I went to a family event. A woman we’d never met before asked, “How come you girls are light? Is your daddy fair?”

My 5-year-old daughter Becky replied, “Yeah, he is — most of the time.”

Oh snap! We’re all kin beneath the skin.

DEAR PROUD >> ... And it’s Becky, in for the win.