I was late for the appointment because I couldn’t find the right building. Turns out I had driven by hundreds of time before – with a movie rental place and liquor store on the ground level, it just wasn’t the sort of place I expected to find a counsellor’s office.

I went inside, where the interior was equally nondescript. Upstairs, I knocked tentatively on her office door. She invited me to sit while she finished some paperwork, which gave me a chance to look around.

Dowdy is the word that came to mind. I don’t remember anything on the walls, though there must have been something. She seemed the type who might decorate with paintings of kittens. The window looked out over the parking lot, and the busy road beyond hummed with traffic. I’d driven by so many times and yet never knew what went on up here. What heartbreaks and secrets and struggles were poured out on the top floor of this white building with a technical-sounding name that always seemed to me as though it had no personality.

The counsellor fit right in with the unremarkable environment. She appeared to be in her late 50s, with nothing to suggest she might be younger. Small, but not petite. Frumpy clothes. And her name – the “doctor” title and male first name, which I’d never heard for a woman – made her seem more academic than therapist.

As we talked, my impression that we wouldn’t click was reinforced, but she was clearly a very caring person. She didn’t specialize in – nor, apparently, know much about – postpartum depression, and I allowed that to be a disadvantage for her.

We talked about the usual things – taking time for myself, strategies for when I’m struggling, assumptions we’ve made about what our “working mom” and “stay-at-home dad” roles must be. “Trigger” was not a word I knew then, but it wasn’t something I expect she’d have uttered. Her commentary was all stuff I’d heard before, so I mostly dismissed it. Either I wasn’t open to it or it didn’t address my most pressing issue. Absolutely losing my cool when dealing with my child, with no sense in the moment of how to regain it, seemed to be buried unacknowledged under the typical advice about motherhood. But, for me, it was so much more complicated than that.

“He screams for milk,” I’d explained, “and if we give it to him late in the afternoon he won’t eat dinner. It’s become a battle I don’t see an end to, and I’m not coping.”

“I’m not getting enough time to myself,” I’d complained, imagining the desperation physically dripping from my lips. “Sometimes I just need five minutes so I don’t feel like I’m going to lose my mind, but my husband has been home with him all day and I feel like I have to be on when I walk through the door.”

And then, as we neared the end and I prepared for the inevitable awkward wrap-up, she said something.

“Wants and needs are different things.”

He’s two, she noted, so sometimes he just wants milk. But sometimes, especially at hard times of the day, he needs milk.

The same was true for my “needs”. Sometimes I want more time to myself – more time than is realistic for any mother regardless of her situation. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to go home. Sometimes I end up at work late and am secretly glad it will reduce the minutes I have to endure until bedtime.

I’m not always going to get that time. Sometimes I want it, and other things come first. But sometimes I need it. At the time of that session – months ago now – I needed it when I walked through the door at the end of the day. I had a toddler running at me, screaming with excitement, and a dog jumping and barking. Both greetings I appreciate for their non-verbal I-love-and-missed-you message, but absolutely overwhelming.

So I took her observation to heart and allowed myself to need that five minutes. I told my precious son he was not allowed to come upstairs with me while I got changed, and my husband helped distract him if necessary. Sometimes after changing out of work clothes I sat on the bed and took deep breaths. Sometimes it was 10 minutes instead of five, but when I came back downstairs I was ready. Ready to play, ready to tumble, ready to do whatever was required of me when I put that mama hat back on.

Wants vs. needs. I’m learning to understand the difference.