“I suppose, in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go.”

— Life of Pi

The closer I get to 30, the more I find myself contemplating the finitude of life.

Not necessarily my own.

But no one tells you that getting older also means watching everything you thought was fixed begin to move.

On an otherwise ordinary morning, just days after I saw Dr. Sandy about replacing my lost retainer, I received an email announcing her impending retirement. Notably, she failed to mention this during my appointment.

“DR. HOUCK RETIREMENT LETTER,” the subject line read in shouty caps.

She closed her letter by saying:

“This has been such a special chapter in my life and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to be a part of your lives and provide your dental care. Hopefully our paths will cross again soon! Wishing wonderful seasons of life for you all.”

— Dr. Sandra J. Houck, DDS

I’ve always been the sentimental type, so the influx of emotion that came over me while reading that email wasn’t particularly surprising.

Just like that, my replacement retainer, formerly the product of a funny story and a string of bad luck took on a whole new meaning.

It became a little souvenir from a place I wasn’t quite ready to leave behind.

At least I’d have the chance to say goodbye this time, since I’d be returning to her office in a week to pick it up.

When I went back, Sandy made a few adjustments to my expensive new accessory and left me with one final piece of advice:

“It’s been a pleasure knowing you, my dear. No more dumb boys, got it?”

I nodded in concurrence.

I knew our paths probably wouldn’t cross again.

Doctors Doug Lambert and Sandy Houck had been my dentists for as long as I’ve had teeth to clean.

I don’t know why it never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be my dentists forever.

Doug was already gone by the time I understood this.

What a strange and sobering realization that was.

I never did get to say goodbye to him.

Knowing nonfiction is the only genre I reach for, my sweet friend Kalley gifted me a copy of Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, shortly before all of this unfolded.

When Sandy’s email left me contemplating impermanence, I knew it was time to crack it open.

Thanks, Kalley. Your timing wasn’t lost on me.

“Old age is a continuous series of losses,” Gawande writes.

While “old age” may be a stretch for an almost thirty year-old, I do think there comes a point in adulthood when you begin noticing those losses at the edges.

The dentist you’ve known since childhood retires.

A favorite restaurant closes.

Your best friend moves.

Our dogs get old.

Someone dies.

You ever get so sad about people dying that you manically start learning how to make their recipes?

Yeah, me either.

My grandma once told me that after her mother passed, she couldn’t make great-grandma Bitzer’s chocolate chippers without sobbing in the kitchen while they baked.

I understand her grief differently, now.

Recipes are funny things.

When scribbled on a greasy notecard, they look almost insultingly ordinary. Measurements and temperatures and instructions.

But if you’ve ever tried to recreate a recipe from someone you loved, you know the written instructions only get you so far.

Most of the important parts never make it onto the notecard.

Eventually, you realize what seems permanent is often just what’s been repeated enough times that you wouldn’t think to imagine its end.

Family holidays.

Dentist appointments.

Spam salad and banana bread.

More often than not, we don’t know when we’re experiencing something for the last time.

That time, I did.

I got to go back.

I got one last bit of relationship advice and I got to say goodbye.

There is something merciful about an ending that announces itself.

Later in his book, Gawande explains how what we value changes with our perception of time.

When we believe we have all the time in the world, we spend so much of it looking ahead.

We chase what we haven’t done, haven’t seen, haven’t learned, or become yet.

But once time starts to feel finite, our attention shifts inward to what is already here.

Perhaps you don’t have to be old to start feeling that shift.

Sometimes all it takes is an email.

I’ve spent a lot of my young adult life focusing on what comes next. The next city. The next job. The next trip.

Lately, I find myself looking around more.

Not because I believe the best parts are behind me.

Just because most of what I’ll miss someday is still here.

And I don’t want to miss them twice.