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I trust your a good summer: my experience was different. That day we were scheduled to take a vacation, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which resulted in our travel plans had to be cancelled.

From this experience 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 everyday, quietly devastating disappointments that – unless we can actually feel them – will really weigh us down.

When we were supposed 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 down. And then I would face the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a limited time window for an relaxing trip on the Belgium's beaches. So, no getaway. Just discontent and annoyance, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it’s only a holiday, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I used that reasoning too. But what I wanted was to be honest with myself. In those moments 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 experiencing sadness and trying to smile, I’ve given myself permission 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 was feasible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This reminded me of a hope I sometimes notice in my therapy clients, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could somehow undo our negative events, like pressing a reset button. But that button only goes in reverse. Acknowledging the reality that this is not possible and embracing the grief and rage for things not turning out how we expected, rather than a false optimism, 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 experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a pressing down of rage and grief and frustration and delight and life force, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of honest emotional expression and freedom.

I have often found myself caught in this desire to reverse things, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times burdened by the astonishing demands of my infant. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the change you were changing. These routine valuable duties among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a reassurance and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What surprised me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the feelings requirements.

I had thought my most primary duty as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon understood that it was impossible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her appetite could seem endless; my milk could not arrive quickly, or it came too fast. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she hated being changed, and cried as if she were falling into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that no comfort we gave could assist.

I soon discovered that my most important job as a mother was first to endure, and then to support her in managing the powerful sentiments triggered by the unattainability of my guarding her from all discomfort. As she enhanced her skill to take in and digest milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to process her feelings and her suffering when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was suffering, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to assist in finding significance to her feelings journey of things not working out ideally.

This was the contrast, for her, between being with someone who was attempting to provide her only good feelings, and instead being assisted in developing a ability to experience all feelings. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel great about performing flawlessly as a flawless caregiver, and instead building the ability to endure my own imperfections in order to do a good enough job – and comprehend my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The difference between my attempting to halt her crying, and recognizing when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel less keenly the desire to click erase and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find faith in my feeling of a ability evolving internally to acknowledge that this is not possible, and to realize that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rearrange a trip, what I truly require is to sob.