When does the 'learning' really happen?

Something I have been dreading for quite a while has finally come to pass.
My sibling has made the announcement most families prefer not to hear..."I have made my choice and this is who I want to marry".
Althought not such a big deal as it once was, it didnt even prove as big a deal as I thought it would be! It turns out, all those nights of bad dreams and restlessness and worries about how my parents would react have essentially come to a naught. Nothing overtly emotional has happened and from the looks of it, things will work out just fine. Of course it will not be ideal but the relief from not having to see the worse is far far greater than conditions being less than perfect [does that even happen?].

Hasnt everybody heard somewhere, sometime that things are never as bad as they seem? The lesson is literal there and simple to follow right? But how many times have I held on to it or even remembered it and not shrunk from facing a situation only because of the webs of entanglement that I kept weaving in my mind? Never. Not once that I can recall. What in fact I can recollect is a long list of episodes where I consistently avoided a situation however inevitable by letting myself be overwhelmed with fear of the worst. The counter-party list that I can also summon is that of sheer nothingness that actually resulted when I did in the end stand up to the circumstances. There is yet another corresponding list where I have reminded myself and sternly so at times that I need to realise that the worse as a matter of fact mostly resides in my mind and not in reality.

So is this then a matter of slow learning on my part? Or a refusal to learn an oft realised lesson?
Or simply that I as a person lack fortitude....the courage of conviction?