Attachment. It's a disease we all suffer from. It's the feeling of attraction we have towards someone or some thing that brings us, or has once brought us, to experience pleasure and joy when interacting with them. We don't need to be constantly around that person or talking to them all the time. We don't have to have the best memories with them. All we need to know is that they are there, and that they brought us happiness at one time. All it takes is that one time to spark the attraction, and the attachment doesn't come long after. These attachments form towards those we love and trust. Which is why it becomes so hard for us to let go of that person or thing that held so much of our attention at one time.

I think the hardest thing about having attachments is thinking that the relationships are going to last forever. Because we allow things to have so much of an influence on us, it's so hard to think that we might not have that influence anymore. We think everything is invincible. I hate to be the one to throw in a spoiler alert, but it's not. Nothing and no one is invincible.

It's two months today that I was sitting in my room packing to move in for my sophomore year of college that I got the phone call. All it took was five minutes for my life to change - and my life did change, a lot more than anyone would expect it to; a lot more than I would have expected it to. It's been two months since the weirdest day of my life. That's exactly what it was. Just weird.

I spent the day packing and shopping and doing a summers worth of stuff in one day to get ready to go back to college the following day. Was I at all ready to go back to school? Nope. Did I feel confident in anything I was going back to? Nope. Did I think I was going to be able to do anything I was supposed to? Nope. I was going into school trying to pretend I was something better than I had been all summer. I was trying to convince myself that I was going to be able to just do everything the way I did last year - just hop into the swing of things and be okay. But the kicker is I wasn't okay.

But even with all of this, thinking about all of this, not being ready for anything, and realizing all of this in one day. Was I at all stressed out about getting it done, figuring myself out, and going back to Eastern the next day? Nope. Quite contrarily, I was the most content I think I have ever been in my entire life. And I had no idea why.

All of this led up to that one phone call. That short little terrible phone call that changed my life.

It was two months ago today that one person who had so much influence on me no longer had any influence on me anymore at all. Completely out of nowhere I was left feeling almost empty, hopeless, and sad.

It was two months ago today that my dad passed away.

I can tell you that as I write this right now, I can talk about all of this because I oddly feel just as content as I did that day leading up to that phone call. But when this article gets published and I am no longer feeling this contentment, but rather the sadness of knowing my dad no longer walks this earth. My grief is a cycle, and it feels as if I am just reliving that day over a longer span of time.

Today I am thinking about the best times I shared with him. I am thinking about sledding down the big hill at the mansion. When we drove around blasting The Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gang in the car as loud as it could go because it was fun. (I'm probably listening to that song today too.) Today I am remembering the DC trips we took. I'm reminiscing on all the Beatles music he taught me, and thinking about all the other music we would sing together at the top of our lungs. I am thinking about how excited he would get for Steelers games, and how decorated our house would be. I am thinking about how much fun we had all the time, even though I tend to have a hard time acknowledging that.

Today I am thinking about how much fun we had, while also acknowledging that I am sad, that I miss his presence, that I hate that he is gone, that I feel like I could have done better, that I feel like he could have done better, that I want to know why, that I wish things were different, and so much more. I am acknowledging all the feelings I have set aside for this day.

So today I am recognizing the attachment I had to my dad. I am allowing myself to feel. I am hurting. I am happy and I am sad. I am grieving. But that's the price of love right? To feel, to hurt, to grieve, and to remember.