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I wish you enjoyed a good summer: my experience was different. On the day we were supposed to be take a vacation, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, expecting him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which meant our travel plans were forced to be cancelled.

From this situation I learned something valuable, all over again, about how hard it is for me to acknowledge pain when things take a turn. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more everyday, subtly crushing disappointments that – without the ability to actually acknowledge them – will truly burden us.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but weren't, I kept feeling a tug 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 never felt better, just a bit depressed. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery required frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a short period for an enjoyable break on the Belgium's beaches. So, no getaway. Just letdown and irritation, hurt and nurturing.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I wanted was to be honest with myself. In those times when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were facing it as a team. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to smile, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to anger and frustration and hatred and rage, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even was feasible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This brought to mind of a wish I sometimes observe in my counseling individuals, and that I have also seen in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could in some way erase our difficult moments, like pressing a reset button. But that button only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is impossible and accepting the pain and fury for things not working out how we anticipated, rather than a insincere positive spin, can promote a transformation: from rejection and low mood, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be transformative.

We consider depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a pressing down of frustration and sorrow and letdown and happiness and energy, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

I have frequently found myself caught in this desire to reverse things, but my toddler is assisting me in moving past it. As a first-time mom, I was at times burdened by the amazing requirements of my infant. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the changing, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the swap you were handling. These routine valuable duties among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a solace and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, unceasing and exhausting. What shocked me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the feelings requirements.

I had believed my most primary duty as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon came to realise that it was impossible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her craving could seem endless; my milk could not be produced rapidly, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she disliked being changed, and wept as if she were falling into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that no solution we provided could assist.

I soon realized that my most important job as a mother was first to persevere, and then to help her digest the overwhelming feelings provoked by the infeasibility of my guarding her from all unease. As she enhanced her skill to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to manage her sentiments and her pain when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was hurting, or any other hard and bewildering experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to assist in finding significance to her sentimental path of things being less than perfect.

This was the contrast, for her, between having someone who was attempting to provide her only positive emotions, and instead being supported in building a capacity to experience all feelings. It was the distinction, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about executing ideally as a perfect mother, and instead building the ability to endure my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and comprehend my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The difference between my attempting to halt her crying, and recognizing when she had to sob.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel reduced the urge to hit “undo” and change our narrative into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my sense of a skill evolving internally to acknowledge that this is impossible, and to comprehend that, when I’m busy trying to rearrange a trip, what I actually want is to sob.