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I wish you enjoyed a enjoyable summer: mine was not. That day we were scheduled to go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have urgent but routine surgery, which meant our getaway ideas had to be cancelled.

From this experience I realized a truth important, all over again, about how challenging 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 – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will truly burden us.

When we were meant to be on holiday but could not be, I kept sensing an urge towards finding the positive: “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 depressed. And then I would confront the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a finite opportunity for an relaxing trip on the Belgian coast. So, no getaway. Just discontent and annoyance, pain and care.

I know graver situations can happen, it’s only a holiday, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be honest with myself. In those instances when I was able to stop fighting off 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 unwanted feelings, including but not limited to anger and frustration and aversion and wrath, which at least felt real. At times, it even was feasible to enjoy our time at home together.

This recalled of a hope I sometimes observe in my counseling individuals, and that I have also experienced in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like clicking “undo”. But that arrow only points backwards. Acknowledging the reality that this is not possible and allowing the grief and rage for things not turning out how we anticipated, rather than a false optimism, can facilitate a change of current: from denial and depression, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We think of depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a suppressing of anger and sadness and disappointment and joy and vitality, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and freedom.

I have often found myself trapped in this urge to click “undo”, but my toddler is assisting me in moving past it. As a first-time mom, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the feeding – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the changing, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even finished the task you were changing. 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 astounded me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the psychological needs.

I had assumed my most important job as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon came to realise that it was impossible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her hunger could seem unmeetable; my milk could not be produced rapidly, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to change her – but she hated being changed, and sobbed as if she were falling into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed soothed by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that no solution we provided could aid.

I soon discovered that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to persevere, and then to assist her process the powerful sentiments caused by the infeasibility of my protecting her from all distress. As she grew her ability to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to process her feelings and her pain when the milk didn’t come, or when she was hurting, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to make things go well, but to support in creating understanding to her sentimental path of things not going so well.

This was the difference, for her, between having someone who was trying to give her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being assisted in developing a skill to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the contrast, for me, between aiming to have wonderful about performing flawlessly as a perfect mother, and instead building the ability to endure my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and understand my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The contrast between my seeking to prevent her crying, and understanding when she needed to cry.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel reduced the wish to click erase and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find optimism in my sense of a ability growing inside me to recognise that this is impossible, and to realize that, when I’m busy trying to rearrange a trip, what I actually want is to cry.