“There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision – possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life – and that is, whether to be bitter or not.” I came across this quote recently and it struck me. I have been this woman, waiting on the precipice where I could become bitter and hardened to love. It didn’t happen in my mid-life; it happened when I turned 30 and thought my life would look a lot different than it did.

I had just had my heart broken. Then it happened again at 33, 35, and so on. Now I know that happiness depends on my belief in it, despite my past break-ups, heartache, and uncertainty. Hope and love are things that I cling to, even when life feels uneven. They are the things that keep me from giving in to the harder version of myself. I have learned that pain does not get the final word unless I let it. So I keep choosing the softer, braver path, even when it feels uncertain.

But sometimes, we find love and push it away. We aren’t ready for a relationship, but why do we do this? Here’s the truth: Sometimes what we think we want is not what we actually want, especially when it comes to relationships. We look for love, and then turn and run away in fear once we’ve found it. Maybe it came at the wrong time, or not in the way we imagined. Sometimes the thing we long for most is also the thing that scares us most. And that fear can make us confuse resistance with wisdom.

We go through many years of dating the wrong people, getting caught up in the highs and lows of love, and then at a certain point, we become weary. We don’t think romantic love can weather storms, or even find us. But fear is real, and so is love. So we must embrace the fear in order to get to the love. The answer is not to wait until fear disappears completely. It is to move forward anyway, with our eyes open.