I have been sick in lots of different countries. Violently sick.

I don’t recommend it, but there is something rather glorious about the day after it’s all over. I feel hollowed out, renewed somehow…I’ve often wondered, perhaps this is what the bulimic is after? That feeling that all is new, a fresh slate ready for all possibilites. I wake and feel that I am both the shed husk of the cocoon and the emergent airy butterfly (I am also usually a tad delirious and weak-kneed, hence the need to wax on about metaphorical butterflies).

It is a profound feeling, like I’m a new vessel – a fragile hull set upon the sparkling waters. It is always a surprise to see that my body looks more or less the same. Given how light I feel, I swear the mirror should reflect a more skeletal frame.

Likewise, I love scrubbing something really dirty. I like the broom to show where it’s been, the vacuum to cut a swath on the floor, the rag to reveal the black mud from the car.

Given my prediliction for cleanliness,  I’m sure that back-in-the-day, I would have been a prime candidate for leeches. For surely bloodletting would bring on that same light-headed euphoria? Especially if it didn’t kill you.

Which brings me to grief (did you really think I was quite ready to let go of this theme of grief?).

Yesterday I felt positively effervescent, like champagne was bubbling in my veins. It was such a contrast to how I had been feeling.  So when I came home from my walk/run, to find this comment from my friend, Sharon Brown,  I knew she was describing exactly what I was feeling. She wrote, “For me, I usually experience a stage sometime after the shock of a loss when everything feels more alive. No fog of pettiness or depression. No dust of despair. Grief as an emotional cleaning lady.”

Bingo, baby. Bingo.

The process of losing my dad has been a long one…and as much as I do not like euphemisms for dying, in this case I really do mean losing. The man I knew has been slowly disappearing over these past three years. I have no idea how many times I cried in my car after my weekly visits or how many times I cried while we kept vigil during his last week. Suffice it to say, my inner saline count is probably fairly low by now.

I realized I have been grieving his leave-taking for weeks, months and years and I feel wrung out, but kind of in a good way; in a place that leaves me broken and open as a result.

This is what I know.

Pain demands to be felt, but by feeling it and not running from it or pretending it’s not happening, I have a chance to let it pass through me, rather than have it lodge in my gut or trap itself in my body.

So, do I think I’m all done and that now it’s all butterflies and sparkling seas from here on in?

Uh…no.

But I feel like I’m prepared for whatever comes next. Whether I’m suddenly blindsided by tears or lifted by euphoria or just hanging somewhere in the middle, I want to be open to life.

The emotional cleaning lady has been hard at work and I am cleansed. I am ready for whatever comes next.

Scrub-a-dub-dub.