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I wish you enjoyed a pleasant summer: I did not. On the day we were planning to go on holiday, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which meant our travel plans had to be cancelled.

From this episode I learned something valuable, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more common, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually acknowledge them – will significantly depress us.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but weren't, I kept feeling a tug towards looking for silver linings: “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 remained low, just a bit down. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery involved frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a short period for an pleasant vacation on the shores of Belgium. So, no holiday. Just letdown and irritation, hurt and nurturing.

I know more serious issues 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 sincere with my feelings. In those moments when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to smile, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and loathing and fury, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even was feasible to enjoy our time at home together.

This reminded me of a wish I sometimes observe in my counseling individuals, and that I have also experienced in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like hitting a reverse switch. But that option only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is impossible and embracing the sorrow and anger for things not working out how we anticipated, rather than a insincere positive spin, can facilitate a change of current: from denial and depression, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be transformative.

We view depression as experiencing negativity – 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 life force, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of honest emotional expression and freedom.

I have often found myself caught in this desire to reverse things, but my toddler is helping me to grow out of it. As a first-time mom, I was at times swamped by the astonishing demands of my infant. Not only the nourishing – 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 changing again before you’ve even ended the change you were doing. These everyday important activities among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a reassurance and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, unceasing and exhausting. What astounded me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the feelings requirements.

I had thought my most primary duty as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon came to realise that it was not possible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her appetite could seem insatiable; my supply could not arrive quickly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she hated being changed, and cried as if she were descending 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 aid.

I soon learned that my most crucial role as a mother was first to persevere, and then to help her digest the powerful sentiments caused by the unattainability of my shielding her from all unease. As she enhanced her skill to take in and digest milk, she also had to build an ability to digest her emotions and her pain when the milk didn’t come, or when she was hurting, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to guarantee smooth experiences, but to support in creating understanding to her emotional experience of things not working out ideally.

This was the difference, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being assisted in developing a capacity to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the contrast, for me, between desiring to experience great about doing a perfect job as a ideal parent, and instead building the ability to tolerate my own shortcomings in order to do a good enough job – and comprehend 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 not as strongly the desire to click erase and alter our history into one where things are ideal. I find hope in my sense of a capacity growing inside me to understand that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m busy trying to reschedule a vacation, what I truly require is to weep.