In a world where our identities are quietly sculpted by every relationship we hold, it’s easy to lose ourselves in the slow erosion of unmet emotional needs.

This piece explores what it means to feel like the “common denominator,” to question your worth, and to reclaim authorship over your inner architecture.

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“The Sculptor + The Architect”

by Shelly Moore Caron

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What do you do when every relationship in your life leaves you feeling quietly unfulfilled?

My brain defaults to what I call the Common Denominator Theory.

If every connection feels shallow, distant, or mismatched, then surely the issue must be me… right?

When you open yourself completely to someone – share a whole experience in paragraphs – and they respond with a single word or an emoji?

That lands like a punch.

When you bring a partner a serious concern – and they laugh it off, or miss the point entirely – it bruises something sacred.

When this happens not once, but for weeks, months, years, your fulfillment meter begins to blink EXPIRED like a parking meter long overdue.

Most people blame the other party for not understanding their depth.

I step outside myself and ask:

What’s the one constant in every relationship I have ever had?

Me.

I am the common denominator.

So I apologize.

For existing too fully.

For feeling too much.

For speaking in paragraphs in a world that prefers bullet points.

I apologize for being “too” anything.

And I convince myself that if I shrink, maybe I’ll fit.

But here’s what four decades+ have taught me:

Shrinking doesn’t create connection.

It creates absence.

I’ve taken blame that wasn’t mine simply to stop emotional hemorrhaging.

I did this in my divorce – collapsing to my knees with apologies in hopes of ending the pain for everyone involved.

It brought peace.

It did.

But at what personal cost?

Sometimes I imagine an ethereal sculptor walking beside me, chiseling bits of my soul away with every compromise, every self-blame, every apology offered just to keep the peace.

He is not malicious; he’s simply doing his job.

I hand him the hammer.

He’s been sculpting for a long time now.

Some days, I fear there isn’t much left to carve.

But here’s the truth I’m learning, slowly:

I am not just the sculpture.

I am also the architect.

And architects don’t ask marble how to be beautiful.

They design space intentionally.

The exhaustion I feel – the hollow places – come not from loving deeply, but from handing the chisel to anyone who asks.

My reserve tanks are low not because I am broken, but because I’ve been trying to pour oceans into shot glasses.

Everyone is responsible for refilling their own well.

No one can drink on my behalf.

No one can hand me water when I refuse to open my palms.

That’s not victimhood.

That’s sovereignty.

There are days the game feels rigged – like I’m a pawn for others to move as they please.

But here’s the card I keep tucked under my sleeve:

I can always choose.

To leave the game entirely, yes –

but also to step off the board, to put down the chisel, to stop apologizing for having depth.

I stay because I love the souls tethered to me, and because love is a legacy that outlives the body delivering it.

But I’m learning something more:

The sculptor only chisels when I hand him the tool.

The architect only loses power when she forgets she’s holding the blueprint.

Maybe I don’t need to shrink to be loved.

Maybe I need to build rooms big enough for my own echo.

And maybe – when my children are older,

when they’ve walked a few miles in their own bare feet –

they’ll look back and say:

“She loved us fiercely.

She carved herself into someone we could lean on.

She tried her best to build a world that felt like home.”

And maybe that will be enough.

You either shrink the fit the room you’re in, or you build rooms big enough to hold you.

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