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I hope you had a good summer: I did not. On the day we were supposed to be take a vacation, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which caused our vacation arrangements had to be cancelled.

From this episode I learned something important, all over again, about how hard it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more common, subtly crushing disappointments that – without the ability to 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 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 didn't improve, just a bit blue. And then I would face 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 enjoyable break on the Belgium's beaches. So, no vacation. Just letdown and irritation, hurt and nurturing.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I used that reasoning too. But what I wanted was to be sincere with my feelings. In those times when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were sharing an experience. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to smile, I’ve granted myself all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and aversion and wrath, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even became possible to enjoy our time at home together.

This reminded me of a desire I sometimes observe in my counseling individuals, and that I have also experienced in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could perhaps undo our negative events, like hitting a reverse switch. But that arrow only points backwards. Facing the reality that this is impossible and accepting the pain and fury for things not working out how we expected, rather than a insincere positive spin, can promote a transformation: from avoidance and sadness, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We consider depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a pressing down of rage and grief and frustration and delight and vitality, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

I have often found myself stuck in this urge to reverse things, but my toddler is supporting my evolution. As a first-time mom, I was at times overwhelmed by the amazing requirements of my newborn. Not only the feeding – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even finished the task you were doing. 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, unceasing and exhausting. What astounded me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the emotional demands.

I had believed my most key role as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon realized that it was unfeasible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her appetite 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 cried as if she were falling into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that nothing we had to offer could help.

I soon learned that my most important job as a mother was first to endure, and then to support her in managing the intense emotions provoked by the infeasibility of my shielding her from all discomfort. As she developed her capacity 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 challenging and perplexing 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 having someone who was trying to give her only positive emotions, and instead being assisted in developing a capacity to feel every emotion. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel great about doing a perfect job as a ideal parent, and instead building the ability to tolerate my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a sufficiently well – and understand my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The contrast between my seeking to prevent her crying, and recognizing when she required to weep.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel less keenly the wish to hit “undo” and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find hope in my sense of a ability developing within to recognise that this is impossible, and to realize that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rearrange a trip, what I actually want is to weep.