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I hope you had a good summer: I did not. On the day we were scheduled to take a vacation, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which caused our travel plans were forced to be cancelled.

From this episode I gained insight valuable, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to experience sadness when things don't work out. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more everyday, quietly devastating disappointments that – unless we can actually feel them – will significantly depress us.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but could not be, I kept sensing an urge 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 depressed. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a finite opportunity for an enjoyable break on the Belgium's beaches. So, no holiday. Just discontent and annoyance, pain and care.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's just a trip, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I wanted was to be truthful to myself. In those instances when I was able to cease resisting the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of being down and trying to appear happy, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to anger and frustration and aversion and wrath, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even turned out to enjoy our time at home together.

This brought to mind of a hope I sometimes observe in my therapy clients, and that I have also seen in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could perhaps undo our negative events, like hitting a reverse switch. But that arrow only goes in reverse. Acknowledging the reality that this is not possible and allowing the sorrow and anger for things not turning out how we hoped, rather than a dishonest kind of “reframing”, 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 profoundly impactful.

We consider depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a suppressing of rage and grief and disappointment and joy and vitality, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and liberty.

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 burdened by the amazing requirements of my baby. Not only the feeding – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the diaper swaps, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even finished 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, relentless and draining. What astounded me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the psychological needs.

I had thought my most important job as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon understood that it was impossible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her craving could seem insatiable; my milk could not come fast enough, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she despised being changed, and sobbed as if she were plunging into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that nothing we had to offer could aid.

I soon discovered that my most important job as a mother was first to persevere, and then to assist her process the powerful sentiments provoked by the infeasibility of my protecting her from all unease. As she developed her capacity to take in and digest 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 difficult and confusing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to make things go well, but to help bring meaning to her feelings journey of things being less than perfect.

This was the distinction, for her, between having someone who was attempting to provide her only positive emotions, and instead being helped to grow a capacity to experience all feelings. It was the contrast, for me, between wanting to feel excellent about doing a perfect job as a perfect mother, and instead developing the capacity to tolerate my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a sufficiently well – and understand my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The distinction between my trying to stop her crying, and understanding when she required to weep.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel not as strongly the wish to hit “undo” and change our narrative into one where all is perfect. I find faith in my sense of a ability growing inside me to acknowledge that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m focused on striving to rearrange a trip, what I truly require is to sob.