As is the case for many people, I have experienced putting off a breakup for fear of being alone. BAD IDEA. Truth is, when you do that, you only end up being more bitter and resentful towards the person than you already will be post-breakup. I also have experienced knowing for an extended period of time, as in many, many months, that I needed to breakup with someone, but refused to do so in case, by some strange act of nature, or magic, that the relationship would suddenly turn itself around and that everything that made me know we needed to breakup would disappear. Silly brain, always playing tricks on me. I have also been through breakups that make you feel like your entire world just burst into flames, and that you, yourself are about to catch on fire at any moment. Likewise, I’ve been through breakups that make me sing and dance about the newly found freedom I just gained.

The one thing all of these breakups have in common is that they all caused an internal struggle in my mind, at one time or another. For some, it was immediately following the breakup. For others, the war snuck up on me several months later. Here’s the truth: breakups can suck, but they’re necessary.

The paradox comes in when we come to terms with the fact that something that we were once excited about, and may have even considered a beautiful thing, has ended, but are also excited about what is to come. That’s the trick, though, being able to accept the truth in both of those statements: this is over, but this is about to begin. Allow yourself to be okay with that.

Like Taylor Swift said in her song Blank Space, “So it’s gonna be forever, or it’s gonna go down in flames.” If you’re not okay with this fact, then maybe relationships, in general, aren’t for you just yet. After my most recent breakup, my sister said something to me that really helped pull me out of the mud. I had just expressed to her that the failure of the relationship made me feel like a failure. She responded gently, but intently, with “Bekah, everyone fails at 100% of the relationships they enter, until they don’t.” In other words, all relationships either fail, or they succeed. There is no in between.

That being said, while there is great sorrow and heart ache that comes with breakups, there is also great beauty. The end of one relationship that wasn’t meant for you births the potential of one that is. It’s all in how you choose to look at it. My advice? Allow yourself to mourn the loss for a time, but then be willing to let that go. Don’t condemn yourself to a life of pain. Then, once you’ve allowed yourself to mourn, let yourself move on. You deserve it.