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I trust your a enjoyable summer: mine was 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 learned something valuable, all over again, about how challenging it is for me to experience sadness when things go wrong. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more everyday, subtly crushing disappointments that – without the ability to actually acknowledge them – will significantly depress us.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but could not be, I kept feeling a tug 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 down. And then I would confront the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a finite opportunity for an enjoyable break on the shores of Belgium. So, no holiday. Just letdown and irritation, hurt and nurturing.

I know graver situations can happen, it's just a trip, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I used that reasoning too. But what I needed was to be truthful to myself. In those instances when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and loathing and fury, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even was feasible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This recalled of a hope I sometimes observe in my counseling individuals, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like pressing a reset button. But that arrow only looks to the past. Acknowledging the reality that this is impossible and allowing the grief and rage for things not happening how we anticipated, rather than a insincere positive spin, can enable a shift: from avoidance and sadness, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – 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 rage and grief and frustration and delight and vitality, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and release.

I have repeatedly found myself stuck in this wish to click “undo”, but my toddler is assisting me in moving past it. As a new mother, I was at times overwhelmed by the astonishing demands of my baby. Not only the feeding – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the changing, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even finished the task you were handling. These routine valuable duties among so many others – functionality combined with nurturing – are a comfort and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What surprised me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the psychological needs.

I had assumed my most primary duty as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon realized that it was not possible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her hunger could seem endless; my milk could not come fast enough, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she disliked being changed, and cried as if she were plunging into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no comfort we gave could aid.

I soon learned that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to endure, and then to assist her process the overwhelming feelings caused by the impossibility of my guarding her from all discomfort. As she enhanced her skill to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to digest her emotions and her suffering when the supply was insufficient, or when she was hurting, or any other hard and bewildering experience – and I had to grow through her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to make things go well, but to assist in finding significance to her sentimental path of things not working out ideally.

This was the distinction, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being assisted in developing a skill to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel excellent about executing ideally as a flawless caregiver, and instead building the ability to endure 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 comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel less keenly the desire to press reverse and change our narrative into one where all is perfect. I find hope in my awareness of a ability developing within to understand that this is impossible, and to realize that, when I’m busy trying to rebook a holiday, what I actually want is to cry.