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I trust your a enjoyable summer: I did not. On the day we were scheduled to take a vacation, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which caused our vacation arrangements had to be cancelled.

From this situation I realized a truth important, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to feel bad when things take a turn. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more everyday, subtly crushing disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will truly burden us.

When we were expected to be on holiday but weren't, I kept sensing an urge towards finding the positive: “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 had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery involved frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a finite opportunity for an pleasant vacation on the Belgian coast. So, no vacation. Just disappointment and frustration, hurt and nurturing.

I know worse things can happen, it's just a trip, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be honest with myself. In those times when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of experiencing sadness and trying to appear happy, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to anger and frustration and loathing and fury, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible to value our days at home together.

This recalled of a desire I sometimes see in my counseling individuals, and that I have also experienced in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like pressing a reset button. But that button only looks to the past. Acknowledging the reality that this is impossible and accepting the pain and fury for things not happening how we expected, rather than a false optimism, can facilitate a change of current: from rejection and low mood, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be transformative.

We view depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a suppressing of rage and grief and disappointment and joy and energy, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and liberty.

I have often found myself stuck in this wish to reverse things, but my toddler is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times swamped by the astonishing demands of my infant. Not only the nursing – sometimes for a lengthy period 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 task you were doing. These everyday important activities among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a reassurance and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, unceasing and exhausting. What shocked me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the emotional demands.

I had assumed my most important job as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon came to realise that it was unfeasible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her appetite could seem insatiable; my nourishment could not come fast enough, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she despised being changed, and wept as if she were falling into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that no comfort we gave could help.

I soon realized that my most important job as a mother was first to survive, and then to help her digest the overwhelming feelings provoked by the unattainability of my protecting her from all unease. As she grew her ability to consume and process milk, she also had to build an ability to manage her sentiments and her distress when the milk didn’t come, or when she was hurting, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to grow through her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her feelings journey of things not going so well.

This was the contrast, for her, between experiencing someone who was attempting to provide her only positive emotions, and instead being assisted in developing a ability to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about executing ideally as a ideal parent, and instead building the ability to accept my own shortcomings in order to do a sufficiently well – and comprehend my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The distinction between my trying to stop her crying, and recognizing when she required to weep.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel not as strongly the urge to press reverse and change our narrative into one where everything goes well. I find faith in my sense of a ability evolving internally to understand that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m busy trying to rearrange a trip, what I really need is to cry.