I’ve been in Majorca this week with my family. As I walk down the cool stairs of our villa for the last time, that familiar feeling comes. A twist in my gut, a pain and a longing, a knowing that I may well never visit here again. It’s quite possibly another in life’s inevitable series of goodbyes.

It’s tempting to resolve the feeling by booking, right away, to come back. And it’s possible that we’ll choose to do that. But let me not act out of a wish to avoid losses and leavings. Let me at least have this be part of the continued practice of learning to let go – with dignity and humility.

Because, in the end, it’s letting go gracefully when I most want to hold on – to places, experiences, the people I love – that I am most going to need. And it’s letting go that life will unquestioningly, with no malice, before long and repeatedly, call on all of us to do.