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

From this episode I learned something significant, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to acknowledge pain when things don't work out. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more everyday, subtly crushing disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were meant to be on holiday but weren't, I kept experiencing a pull 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 depressed. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a finite opportunity for an pleasant vacation on the Belgian coast. So, no getaway. Just discontent and annoyance, pain and care.

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 required was to be sincere with my feelings. In those times when I was able to stop fighting off 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 granted myself all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to anger and frustration and loathing and fury, which at least felt real. At times, it even became possible to enjoy our time at home together.

This recalled of a hope I sometimes see in my counseling individuals, and that I have also experienced in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could somehow erase our difficult moments, like hitting a reverse switch. But that option only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is unattainable and accepting the pain and fury for things not happening how we hoped, rather than a dishonest kind of “reframing”, can promote a transformation: from denial and depression, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be profoundly impactful.

We consider depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening 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 experiencing all emotions, a kind of honest emotional expression and freedom.

I have frequently found myself stuck in this wish to reverse things, but my young child is helping me to grow out of it. As a first-time mom, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the feeding – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even finished the swap you were doing. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a reassurance and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What astounded me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the emotional demands.

I had believed my most important job as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon realized that it was impossible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her craving could seem unmeetable; my milk could not be produced rapidly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to change her – but she disliked being changed, and wept as if she were descending into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that nothing we had to offer could help.

I soon discovered that my most crucial role as a mother was first to survive, and then to support her in managing the intense emotions triggered by the unattainability of my guarding her from all unease. As she grew her ability to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to digest her emotions and her distress when the supply was insufficient, or when she was in pain, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her sentimental path of things being less than perfect.

This was the contrast, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being supported in building a skill to experience all feelings. It was the contrast, for me, between aiming to have excellent about executing ideally as a perfect mother, and instead developing the capacity to endure my own shortcomings in order to do a adequately performed – and comprehend my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The difference between my seeking to prevent her crying, and comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel less keenly the urge to hit “undo” and change our narrative into one where all is perfect. I find hope in my feeling of a capacity growing inside me to understand that this is unattainable, and to realize that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rebook a holiday, what I actually want is to weep.