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I trust your a good summer: mine was not. That day we were planning to go on holiday, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which meant our getaway ideas 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 life-altering traumas, but the more routine, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – without the ability to actually experience them – will really weigh us down.

When we were expected to be on holiday but could not be, I kept experiencing a pull 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 didn't improve, just a bit depressed. And then I would confront the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery involved frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a finite opportunity for an pleasant vacation on the shores of Belgium. So, no vacation. Just discontent and annoyance, hurt and nurturing.

I know more serious issues can happen, it’s only a holiday, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I wanted was to be honest with myself. In those times 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 experiencing sadness and trying to smile, I’ve granted myself all sorts of difficult sentiments, 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 recalled of a hope I sometimes see in my counseling individuals, and that I have also seen in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could perhaps undo our negative events, like clicking “undo”. But that option only looks to the past. Acknowledging the reality that this is impossible and allowing the sorrow and anger for things not working out how we hoped, rather than a false optimism, can enable a shift: from denial and depression, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be profoundly impactful.

We view depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a suppressing of rage and grief and disappointment and joy and life force, 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 frequently found myself trapped in this wish to click “undo”, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times burdened by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the nursing – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even completed the task you were handling. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a reassurance 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 thought my most key role as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon understood that it was impossible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her craving could seem unmeetable; my nourishment could not come fast enough, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she hated being changed, and sobbed as if she were descending into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the hugs 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 crucial role as a mother was first to persevere, and then to assist her process the powerful sentiments caused by the unattainability of my shielding her from all unease. As she enhanced her skill to take in and digest milk, she also had to cultivate a skill to manage her sentiments and her distress when the milk didn’t come, or when she was in pain, 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 guarantee smooth experiences, but to support in creating understanding to her emotional experience of things not going so well.

This was the distinction, for her, between experiencing someone who was attempting to provide her only positive emotions, and instead being supported in building a capacity to feel every emotion. It was the contrast, for me, between wanting to feel excellent about performing flawlessly as a ideal parent, and instead cultivating the skill to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a good enough job – and comprehend my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The contrast between my trying to stop her crying, and comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel less keenly the urge to hit “undo” and rewrite our story into one where all is perfect. I find optimism in my feeling of a skill developing within to recognise that this is impossible, and to realize that, when I’m occupied with attempting to reschedule a vacation, what I actually want is to weep.