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I wish you enjoyed a pleasant summer: I did not. That day we were scheduled to travel for leisure, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have prompt but common surgery, which meant our travel plans were forced to be cancelled.

From this situation I learned something significant, all over again, about how hard it is for me to feel bad when things go wrong. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more everyday, subtly crushing disappointments that – without the ability to actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but were not, I kept sensing an urge towards seeking optimism: “I can {book a replacement trip|schedule another vacation|arrange a different getaway”; “At least we have {travel insurance|coverage for trips|protection for journeys”; “This’ll give me {something to write about|material for an article|content for a story”. But I remained low, just a bit down. And then I would confront the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery involved frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a finite opportunity for an relaxing trip on the shores of Belgium. So, no holiday. Just discontent and annoyance, hurt and nurturing.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's just a trip, an enviable dilemma to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be sincere with my feelings. In those times when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of being down and trying to appear happy, I’ve granted myself all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and loathing and fury, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible to enjoy our time at home together.

This brought to mind of a desire I sometimes observe in my counseling individuals, and that I have also seen in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could perhaps reverse our unwanted experiences, like hitting a reverse switch. But that button only points backwards. Acknowledging the reality that this is unattainable and allowing the pain and fury for things not happening how we hoped, rather than a insincere positive spin, can promote a transformation: from denial and depression, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be profoundly impactful.

We view depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a pressing down of anger and sadness and disappointment and joy and vitality, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and freedom.

I have repeatedly found myself trapped in this urge to reverse things, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times burdened by the amazing requirements of my baby. Not only the feeding – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the changing, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even ended the swap you were changing. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a reassurance and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What astounded me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the psychological needs.

I had believed my most key role as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon understood that it was not possible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her hunger could seem unmeetable; my nourishment could not arrive quickly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she hated being changed, and sobbed as if she were falling into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that nothing we had to offer could assist.

I soon discovered that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to endure, and then to support her in managing the overwhelming feelings provoked by the impossibility of my protecting her from all unease. As she grew her ability to take in and digest milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to process her feelings and her suffering when the milk didn’t come, or when she was hurting, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her sentimental path of things not working out ideally.

This was the contrast, for her, between having someone who was trying to give her only positive emotions, and instead being helped to grow a skill to feel every emotion. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel excellent about doing a perfect job as a flawless caregiver, and instead building the ability to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and understand my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The contrast between my attempting to halt her crying, and recognizing when she required to weep.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel reduced the desire to press reverse and rewrite our story into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my awareness of a skill developing within to understand that this is not possible, and to realize that, when I’m focused on striving to rebook a holiday, what I truly require is to weep.