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I wish you enjoyed a pleasant summer: I did not. On the day we were planning to travel for leisure, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which meant our getaway ideas had to be cancelled.

From this episode I gained insight significant, all over again, about how hard it is for me to acknowledge pain when things take a turn. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more everyday, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were expected to be on holiday but could not be, I kept experiencing a pull 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 blue. And then I would face the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a limited time window for an relaxing trip on the Belgian coast. So, no holiday. Just letdown and irritation, suffering and attention.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's just a trip, an enviable dilemma to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I wanted was to be sincere with my feelings. In those instances when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of being down and trying to smile, I’ve granted myself all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and hatred and rage, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even became possible to value our days at home together.

This recalled of a desire I sometimes observe in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also experienced in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like clicking “undo”. But that button only goes in reverse. Confronting the reality that this is impossible and allowing the pain and fury for things not happening how we expected, rather than a false optimism, can enable a shift: from avoidance and sadness, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be profoundly impactful.

We view depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a repressing of rage and grief and disappointment and joy and vitality, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and liberty.

I have repeatedly found myself stuck in this wish to erase events, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a new mother, I was at times burdened by the amazing requirements of my newborn. Not only the nursing – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the change you were handling. These everyday important activities 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 lack of rest – were the emotional demands.

I had assumed my most key role as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon realized that it was not possible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her hunger could seem insatiable; my nourishment could not be produced rapidly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she despised being changed, and cried as if she were descending 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 distant from us, that no solution we provided could aid.

I soon learned that my most crucial role as a mother was first to survive, and then to help her digest the powerful sentiments provoked by the infeasibility of my guarding her from all discomfort. As she enhanced her skill to consume and process milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to manage her sentiments and her distress when the milk didn’t come, or when she was suffering, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to guarantee smooth experiences, but to assist in finding significance to her feelings journey of things not working out ideally.

This was the contrast, for her, between being with someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a ability to experience all feelings. It was the difference, for me, between desiring to experience excellent about doing a perfect job as a flawless caregiver, and instead developing the capacity to endure my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and grasp my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The difference between my trying to stop her crying, and understanding when she required to weep.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel reduced the desire to press reverse and alter our history into one where all is perfect. I find hope in my awareness of a ability growing inside me to acknowledge that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m focused on striving to reschedule a vacation, what I actually want is to sob.