I'm not living with your mom, I'm living with my mom.

And I feel shame, mainly.

I'm thirty-one year old woman for goodness sake.

(Here is where I will try to keep myself from inserting ego-saving comments like, "I went to MIT! I have money in the bank. I don't need to be here, but it made financial sense. My mom was living alone in a three bedroom apartment. The free room was just sitting there for me. It's only been six months, I wanted to have a free place while I got my new business on track." I could delete this all out later, but I probably won't, because well, it will save me from some shame.)

I've been thinking a lot about this feeling of shame the last few months.

It's a mean addition to otherwise okay feeings.

Take sadness. Sadness alone can be shared with others. If your friend tells you they are heart-broken because their dog was killed by a car, we reach over and we give them a hug. This bad thing happened to them—How deserving of sympathy. They haven't exposed to us something icky, something we don't want to see or feel.

Add shame to sadness, and there's a different journey.

Let's say your friend tells you they are devasted because in a moment of rage they had beat and cast out their dog. Later, their dog was killed by a car.

We move away from him.

The words "What the fuck, dude." come up our throats.

He's equally sad his dog died, but we're no longer giving him a hug. He doesn't deserve one. How ugly and uncomfortable this friend has made us. And he knows it.

So we arrive at a world where instead, still deep in his sadness, he won't tell you his dog died. Maybe he'll string up a long story before he tells you his dog died. Maybe he'll go to the bar instead.

Shame can silence a person for years, even as the event shapes them daily.