Everwhere is walking distance if you have the time

[ClingingToHope]

Date No. 4 with DHU-41 on Friday. Took her to the downtown hangout where I've spent lots of nights the past three years. Met some friends there and they approved and ... that means something.

Not sure why. But it does.

Saturday I had the girls for New Years for the first time since the split. The 9-year-old invited three girls over and they had a lot of fun. The 12-year-old mostly watched TV. She's practicing her "surly teen years" early.

Big year for these two. D12 will actually be a teenager and D9 will turn double-digits. After the ball dropped, she grabbed her friend's arm and yelled "We're going to be pre-teens this year."

Put all of the photos up from Christmas and New Years, and I noticed XW has gained a lot of weight. I know I've mentioned it before, but she can't hide it with clothes anymore.

D12 is still trying to get her to go to the health club with her. I made an offer over a year ago to add XW to my family pass. That way D12 would go more often. XW needs to do something. Truthfully, now I really don't want to add her but I won't rescind the invitation.

I ran today for the first time since the accident and the first time with orthopedic supports. I ran really, really slow, but my left foot didn't feel so bad. We'll see how it is tomorrow.

I'm going to try to get a double in tomorrow -- plasma in the morning and basketball game in at night. I have to make more than I spend consistently this year and I need the extra money.

Wednesday and this weekend I have the girls -- hopefully we won't do much other than hit the health club and date No. 5 with DHU-41 on Thursday.

Things are going well with her, but there are potential storm clouds on the horizon. She's twice divorced, both guys she married (she says) were alcoholics who cheated on her.

Well, I'm not an alcoholic and I've never cheated on anyone. But I'm also in no rush to get married or move in with someone or really sacrifice any of the part-time jobs and time with the daughters.

A friend of mine who is divorced told me "divorced women can be stage-4 clingers" and DHU-41 already has said she's "falling" for me. DHU-41 got upset Friday when I said I still have a long way to go to purge all of the feelings for XW.

It isn't so much that I miss XW as a person. I really don't. And I no longer miss her physically. It's more that I can't stand the fact that I failed and I don't believe I was the reason she was unhappy and I still think she'll wake up one day and realize that ...

Back to DHU-41. I want to take it slow, but commit to her as much as possible. We've already talked about taking a trip for our birthdays -- they are six days apart in April. We've talked about hockey tickets so I can meet her 14-year-old son who is a hockey fan. And we've talked about perhaps her meeting the girls in March at D12's next play.

Really, my schedule is so full I can't fit much more in than seeing her once, perhaps twice a week.

The nice thing is that I feel I can slow down now. A friend texted today wanting to know if I wanted to play cards. I didn't have any plans and normally would have jumped at it. Instead, I said no. I cleaned the house a bit and then headed into work to catch up on stuff.

A lot of things are falling into place.