And the world keeps right on spinning

You know how sometimes you write and erase, and write and erase? Because appropriate articulation is just lacking?
That would be now.
I had a weird experience tonight. I didn't do such a good job of expressing myself to someone with whom I was speaking earlier, so I am mulling it around in my brain to figure out how to better say what I mean.

Did you see the movie Walk the Line? It's the whole Jonny Cash story.
He decends into drug addiction.
There's this scene where his wife is losing it and yelling and crying, and he pins her to the floor in a fit of temper....when they both realize that the kids are standing there. The first time I saw that, in the theatre, I felt like my most private moment had been displayed on screen. Remember my diary on the mattress in the Meth lab? It was like that.
I cried in the produce section of Fred Meyer after the movie, because it welled up, and I felt it all again. (I'm not really a crier)

So tonight, I was in the local homeless shelter.
(What? You don't go there on Friday nights? Perplexing.)
It was a volunteer opportunity. There were several of us.
Anyway...
My husband used to be a regular there. You know, after he grew up to be a drug addict, he ended up living on the streets. We used to pick him up, and buy him a burger sometimes. One time we bought him shoes, because his had been stolen.
He didn't shower very often in those days. My kids remember.

Tonight, M' and I were helping to serve dinner to these guys who smelled like alcohol. They were hungry, and desperation was in their eyes. (They also had cell phones, which was odd.) Every man there was my husband.
Did they have families somewhere who were needing them?
What had they walked away from to be there?
I was shell-shocked.
The world retreated in a moment and the sounds were crystal clear, but distant. Sharp and hazy at the same time. I wanted to go and think somewhere. Cry, maybe.
"How ya doin' tonight? Are you hungry?" I asked as I slopped more tater-tots on a plate.
I was there with a friend who was chatting merrily, as though this was the very most normal thing on the planet. She was happy, and beautiful, and comfortable as can be. Her words were a hummmmm.
And my ex-brother-in-law walked by.
"How ya doin"? How ya been?" What do you say when you see someone you know at the local homeless shelter?
"I'm between jobs right now," He told me. Apparently so.

Past meets Present.

My life right now is good, you know? I love my little life. Those moments that wisk me into memory are shocking. It's like I somehow forgot that my life was all tangled with a homeless drug addict. That I lived that.
I think it's important.
I don't want to forget. I don't want to get used to those experiences, as if that was my life, and it's not big deal.
It was a big deal.
It is a big deal.
It matters.
And the feelings are big. I never want them to diminish.
I want to embrace the power of that, and be made effective.