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I wish you enjoyed 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, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which caused our getaway ideas needed to be cancelled.

From this situation I realized a truth valuable, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to acknowledge pain when things take a turn. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more routine, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were expected to be on holiday but were not, I kept sensing an urge 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 didn't improve, just a bit depressed. And then I would confront the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a short period for an pleasant vacation on the Belgian coast. So, no getaway. Just letdown and irritation, suffering and attention.

I know graver situations can happen, it's merely a vacation, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I needed was to be truthful to myself. In those times when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were facing it as a team. Instead of being down and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve granted myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to anger and frustration and aversion and wrath, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This brought to mind of a desire I sometimes observe in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also seen in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could in some way reverse our unwanted experiences, like pressing a reset button. But that option only looks to the past. Acknowledging the reality that this is not possible and accepting the pain and fury for things not happening how we expected, 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 needs duration – this can be life-changing.

We consider depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of numbing of all emotions, a pressing down of anger and sadness and frustration and delight and life force, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but feeling whatever is there, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and freedom.

I have frequently found myself trapped in this wish to reverse things, but my little one is supporting my evolution. As a first-time mom, I was at times overwhelmed by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even ended the swap you were handling. These routine valuable duties among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a solace and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What surprised me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the emotional demands.

I had thought 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 fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her hunger could seem insatiable; my nourishment could not arrive quickly, 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 comforted by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that nothing we had to offer could assist.

I soon realized that my most crucial role as a mother was first to survive, and then to help her digest the overwhelming feelings caused by the infeasibility of my shielding her from all discomfort. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to build an ability to digest her emotions and her distress when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was in pain, or any other hard and bewildering experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to make things go well, but to support in creating understanding to her feelings journey of things being less than perfect.

This was the distinction, for her, between being with someone who was trying to give her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being supported in building a skill to feel every emotion. It was the distinction, for me, between aiming to have wonderful about executing ideally as a flawless caregiver, and instead developing the capacity to tolerate my own imperfections in order to do a adequately performed – and comprehend my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The distinction 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 wish to click erase and rewrite our story into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my feeling of a capacity growing inside me to understand that this is not possible, and to realize that, when I’m focused on striving to rebook a holiday, what I truly require is to cry.