I’m sitting in the Park-n-Ride parking lot eating Chinese food out of a paper box because home doesn’t feel like home tonight. I’m here because I have a boyfriend who feels shifty and unstable in all the ways that matter most to me. He barely gets off the couch to help, and when he does, it’s as if he’s waiting for applause—for doing the bare minimum.
The one thing I long for—stability—the thing that keeps my heart steady, he treats like a carrot to dangle in front of me. A promise he flashes but never protects. A future he describes but never builds.
He doesn’t provide. He complains. He watches other people live their lives on YouTube while mine unfolds alone in the next room. He makes promises the way some people exhale—effortlessly and without thought. But keeping them? That seems to be a language he’s never learned.
Today he told me I couldn’t come home. No concern for where I’d go. No question about whether I’d be safe. Just dismissal—like my presence is optional and my heart disposable.
He lifts my hopes up with visions of rings and land and an oasis, then burns it all down within minutes, only to laugh while I’m left holding the ashes. My heart feels shredded, and I’m tired—tired of loving someone who doesn’t notice when he crushes me.
And yet here I am, sitting in my car, breathing through the ache, trying to remember who I am outside of his carelessness.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18
Tonight, that verse feels like the only thing keeping me from collapsing into the weight of it all. If God is near the brokenhearted, then He must be sitting here with me—in this cold car, with this cheap Chinese food, holding the parts of me that feel too heavy to hold alone.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But I do know this:
I deserve stability that isn’t dangled.
I deserve love that doesn’t vanish under pressure.
I deserve safety that doesn’t depend on someone else’s mood.
“For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” — 1 Corinthians 14:33
If my life feels like chaos, it isn’t because I’m asking for too much.
It’s because I’ve been settling for far too little.
Tonight, I’m writing this so I won’t forget:
My heart is not a toy.
My future is not a bargaining chip.
And the love I give is worth far more than what I’ve been receiving.
