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I trust your a enjoyable summer: my experience was different. That day we were supposed to be travel for leisure, I was stationed in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have urgent but routine surgery, which caused our travel plans were forced to be cancelled.

From this episode I learned something important, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to experience sadness when things don't work out. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more common, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually acknowledge them – will significantly depress us.

When we were supposed 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 remained low, just a bit blue. 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 enjoyable break on the shores of Belgium. So, no holiday. Just discontent and annoyance, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it’s only a holiday, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I required was to be truthful to myself. In those times when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we talked about it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of feeling depressed and trying to appear happy, 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 became possible to enjoy our time at home together.

This brought to mind of a hope I sometimes see in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also experienced in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could somehow undo our negative events, like pressing a reset button. But that arrow only goes in reverse. Confronting the reality that this is impossible and embracing the sorrow and anger for things not turning out how we anticipated, rather than a insincere positive spin, can promote a transformation: from avoidance and sadness, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be transformative.

We consider depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of dulling of all emotions, a repressing of frustration and sorrow and frustration and delight and life force, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and freedom.

I have often found myself stuck in this wish to reverse things, but my toddler is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times swamped by the astonishing demands of my infant. Not only the nursing – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the changing, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even ended the task you were handling. These everyday important activities among so many others – practicality wrapped up in care – are a solace and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What shocked me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the feelings requirements.

I had assumed my most key role as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon realized that it was unfeasible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her craving could seem endless; my supply could not arrive quickly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to swap her diaper – but she hated being changed, and sobbed as if she were descending into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed comforted by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that no comfort we gave could help.

I soon realized that my most crucial role as a mother was first to persevere, and then to help her digest the powerful sentiments provoked by the impossibility of my guarding her from all discomfort. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to build an ability to manage her sentiments and her suffering when the milk didn’t come, or when she was suffering, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to make things go well, but to help bring meaning to her feelings journey of things not working out ideally.

This was the distinction, for her, between having someone who was seeking to offer her only pleasant sentiments, and instead being helped to grow a skill to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the distinction, for me, between wanting to feel excellent about doing a perfect job as a flawless caregiver, and instead building the ability to accept my own imperfections in order to do a adequately performed – and understand my daughter’s discontent and rage with me. The difference between my seeking to prevent her crying, and understanding when she had to sob.

Now that we have grown through this together, I feel less keenly the urge to press reverse and change our narrative into one where things are ideal. I find faith in my awareness of a skill evolving internally to recognise that this is unattainable, and to comprehend that, when I’m occupied with attempting to reschedule a vacation, what I really need is to weep.