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I hope you had a good summer: my experience was different. The very day we were planning to go on holiday, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, expecting him to have urgent but routine surgery, which meant our travel plans were forced to be cancelled.

From this experience I gained insight significant, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to feel bad when things don't work out. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more common, subtly crushing disappointments that – without the ability to actually experience them – will really weigh us down.

When we were supposed 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 down. 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 Belgium's beaches. So, no vacation. Just letdown and irritation, hurt and nurturing.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I used that reasoning too. But what I needed 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 facing it as a team. Instead of being down and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of unwanted feelings, including but not limited to anger and frustration and hatred and rage, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even became possible to enjoy our time at home together.

This brought to mind of a wish I sometimes notice in my therapy clients, and that I have also witnessed in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could somehow reverse our unwanted experiences, like clicking “undo”. But that button only looks to the past. Facing the reality that this is not possible and accepting the sorrow and anger for things not turning out how we expected, rather than a false optimism, can facilitate a change of current: from rejection and low mood, to growth and possibility. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be profoundly impactful.

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 feeling whatever is there, a kind of honest emotional expression and liberty.

I have repeatedly found myself trapped in this desire to erase events, but my toddler is supporting my evolution. As a first-time mom, I was at times overwhelmed by the amazing requirements of my newborn. 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 doing it once more before you’ve even completed the swap you were changing. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a comfort and a tremendous privilege. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What surprised me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the emotional demands.

I had believed my most primary duty as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon understood that it was not possible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her craving could seem endless; my supply could not be produced rapidly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to alter her clothes – 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 cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were lost to us, that no comfort we gave could help.

I soon learned that my most crucial role as a mother was first to endure, and then to assist her process the intense emotions provoked by the unattainability of my guarding her from all unease. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to build an ability to process her feelings and her distress 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, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to assist in finding significance to her sentimental path of things not working out ideally.

This was the difference, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being supported in building a ability to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the distinction, for me, between desiring to experience excellent about executing ideally as a perfect mother, and instead developing the capacity to tolerate my own shortcomings 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 had to sob.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel reduced the desire to hit “undo” and alter our history into one where things are ideal. I find faith in my awareness of a skill evolving internally to acknowledge that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m occupied with attempting to reschedule a vacation, what I really need is to sob.