Shifting focus

I should be reading about the mechanisms of digestion and absorption in the human body. Or I should be working on my paper for my community health class. Or working on my paper for my writing class that Carrot gave me suggestions for improvement that were amazing and overwhelming. She was trying to go over some of it with me yesterday but I was hurried and anxious, having just gotten home from a 10 hour shift at work that was full of death and sadness and in a hurry to eat and shower before going to a show that I really didn't want to go to but felt some sort of weird social pressure to attend. I didn't stay at the show long, feeling anxious about being in a room with so many people and anxious about being in a space, sitting next to actually, one of my dates who was on a date with her other date. Confusing non-monogamy, right? I wasn't prepared and was jealous, an emotion that I've denied feeling in the past but an emotion I'm ready to face and deal with when it happens. Just before the intermission, the emcee told a racist "joke," sending my anxiety over the edge so I left to the safety of my station wagon and the comfort of my the country music spilling out of my stereo leaving me to dream about the two-step lessons Gene and I will be starting in 10 days! The thought of this made me happy.
I've realized that I need to focus on putting energy towards things that make me feel happy and healthy, like making time to go to the gym, writing, investing more time in friendships that are positive and loving. I want to take a break from dating for a while because its been causing me so much anxiety and sometimes it just feels like a string of negotiations and maintenance in this way that is inorganic and forced. I feel like the last couple of years of dating have been a series of heartbreaks and disappointments due to getting involved with people who are either long-distance or emotionally unavailable or both. I need a time-out before my patterns create an impenetrable scar-tissue around my heart. So, while I should be reading about the mechanisms of human digestion, I'd rather think about the mechanisms of my own heart. I need to take some time and figure out what my contribution to my own heartbreaks have been. I need to be my own date, for a while anyway.