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I wish you enjoyed a enjoyable summer: my experience was different. On the day we were supposed to be travel for leisure, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, waiting for him to have prompt but common surgery, which meant our getaway ideas were forced to be cancelled.

From this experience I gained insight valuable, all over again, about how hard it is for me to acknowledge pain when things go wrong. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more routine, subtly crushing disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will truly burden us.

When we were expected to be on holiday but were not, 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 never felt better, just a bit blue. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday really was gone: my husband’s surgery involved frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a short period for an relaxing trip on the shores of Belgium. So, no vacation. Just letdown and irritation, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it's merely a vacation, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I needed was to be honest with myself. In those times when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of being down and trying to appear happy, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and aversion and wrath, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even was feasible to enjoy our time at home together.

This brought to mind of a hope I sometimes notice in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also experienced in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could in some way reverse our unwanted experiences, like pressing a reset button. But that button only looks to the past. Confronting the reality that this is unattainable and embracing the sorrow and anger for things not turning out how we expected, rather than a insincere positive spin, can facilitate a change of current: from denial and depression, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be profoundly impactful.

We consider depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a suppressing of rage and grief and letdown and happiness and vitality, and all the rest. The alternative to depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and liberty.

I have repeatedly found myself stuck in this urge to click “undo”, but my young child is assisting me in moving past it. As a first-time mom, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my newborn. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for a lengthy period at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even completed the swap you were changing. These everyday important activities among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a comfort and a tremendous privilege. 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 important job as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon understood that it was unfeasible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her appetite could seem unmeetable; my supply could not come fast enough, or it came too fast. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she hated being changed, and sobbed as if she were falling into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the hugs 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 important job as a mother was first to survive, and then to support her in managing the powerful sentiments provoked by the infeasibility of my guarding her from all discomfort. As she developed her capacity to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to process her feelings and her distress when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was hurting, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, hatred, disappointment, hunger. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her emotional experience of things being less than perfect.

This was the contrast, for her, between having someone who was attempting to provide her only positive emotions, and instead being assisted in developing a capacity to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the contrast, for me, between wanting to feel great about executing ideally as a ideal parent, and instead developing the capacity to endure my own shortcomings in order to do a good enough job – and understand my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The difference between my seeking to prevent her crying, and understanding when she required to weep.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel not as strongly the urge to hit “undo” and alter our history into one where all is perfect. I find optimism in my awareness of a ability evolving internally to recognise that this is unattainable, and to realize that, when I’m focused on striving to rebook a holiday, what I really need is to cry.