I am sitting here alone in the house, as I usually am this time of day. But I feel lonelier today because Jillian is out of town until tomorrow night. Let me explain the origin of the terrible feelings I get when she is away from me.

We had been going out on dates for just three weeks when Jillian headed off to her freshman year at Duke. We dated only each other during those three weeks but there was no way, after such a short time that I could ask, nor that she would have agreed, to not date. Besides, one of the reasons she chose Duke was that a guy she dated some during her senior year was going to be a junior there, as well. Nevertheless, I was really smitten with her and did not want to lose her. It was worrisome.

That was hard enough to ponder and then I got this delightful stomach punch. Way back then, there was this interesting contest for the Freshman Duke and Duchess. Each dorm picked a candidate whose headshot was then plastered all over campus for everyone to vote on. Jillian got nominated. And then she won. The prize for the Duchess, as I recall, was a bouquet of flowers and the opportunity to be hit on by every upper c|assman looking for fresh meat. And I got to say "congratulations" with my whole body shaking.

I don't think she had a date with a freshman the whole first semester. But, she also had mostly first dates, thank goodness. This was when she developed her distain for frat boys. She had one date with a senior on the football team who went on to be a starter on the undefeated Dolphins team of 1972. She found him dull and shallow. And, she only had one date with the old boyfriend.

All this time, we are communicating by mail (at least one letter a day) and one weekly three-minute phone call. It was somewhat reassuring to me that she would write me reviews of all her dates and that they were mostly scathing. Still, she was there and pretty and in demand.

Just before Thanksgiving, she invited me to be her "escort" for her pledge formal that neatly coincided with my winter break. And she stopped dating other people.

But, we still had two and a half more years of an LDR to survive without benefit of email, webcams (btw, why did Rory and Logan not take advantage of that technology instead of texting?) or cell phones. And it was wrenching. And, even after we got married, Jillian had to spend her next two summers in France doing research for her PhD. She came back three weeks early the second summer because she couldn't stand any more separation.

After that we made a rule. If one of us had to be out of town for more than two nights for a conference or a meeting, the other came along. We had to break that rule a few times, but having both sets of parents in town made it easy to dump the kids when they came along. Since the kids have flown we have never broken it.

For me, though, not having her here for just one night brings back all the feelings of emptiness, longing and dread I began experiencing over 40 years ago. She gets back at 6:00pm tomorrow. I'm making virtual hash marks on my virtual dorm room wall. By the minute.