I'm ashamed to admit that, before leaving for my two-week trip to Europe over the summer, one of my biggest concerns was not having adequate cell service. This might not be surprising, considering I'm a product of the "technology generation," but it seems a bit codependent to me. I think what I feared most was not being able to keep in touch with my family enough, or possibly missing some very important event via social media updates. I know, insert severe eye-roll here.

While keeping in contact with my family was my first priority, I knew that I didn't want to be away from all of my other connections, either. I can admit, too, that none of my social media accounts are actually important, but I had grown so accustomed to them being there when I was bored, needed a break, or just any given time.

However, without my phone handy, the experiences I took away from the trip weren't tarnished by the unimportance of my bad phone habits.

In hindsight, I'm incredibly grateful for not having much cell service at all over those 16 days. The concern of detachment easily faded away as the experiences of the trip took center stage. While I was able to check my phone at night, I found myself not caring to see what it had to offer me. Of course, I was eager to share my daily activities with my family back home, but that's about all I actually felt the need to do. I even told myself that I was going to adopt this new carefree/phone-free attitude when I made it back to the States.

While I haven't done nearly as good of a job as I'd like, it's never too late to put the phone back down. I felt a sense of weightlessness without my phone so closely tethered to me, and I'd very much like to shed some of that weight again.