Black Girls Living Lavishly

Notes from a Former Good Girl: Entry #2

By Chrystal Anderson

I think about the life I’m living now — soft, mystical, nonlinear, Spirit-led. I live with uncertainty, but also with deep truth. I move intuitively, rest when I need to, and let life show me what’s next.

And when I think about the relationship I was in while I was still becoming this version of me, I know now:
She wouldn’t have loved this life.

She needed stability. She needed structure. She needed things to make sense.
And I don’t blame her. That’s what she was taught to value.
But I’m a mystic.
And my life was never going to fit in the boxes she built to feel safe.

I was becoming while she was judging.

I learned about my neurodivergence mid-relationship. I was unraveling the trauma of perfectionism, burnout, unmasking, and learning what I needed to thrive.
I was stepping into softness, pleasure, and intuition.
I was slowing down. It wasn’t because I didn’t care, but because I was finally learning how to care for myself.

But by the time I understood what was happening inside me, she had already made up her mind about who I was.
She didn’t ask questions to understand. She asked questions to confirm her suspicions.
She couldn’t meet me where I was going. She wasn’t being cruel. She was limited by what she hadn’t yet healed.

The life I’m living now would’ve embarrassed her.

She would have called it unstable.
She would have asked why I’m not doing more, earning more, being more.
But that’s the thing: I am being more; just not in the way she measured worth.

And if I had stayed? I would’ve betrayed myself just to be loved by someone who didn’t have the capacity to see me.

I’m sad I accepted so little.

Not just from her, but from myself. I believed I had to earn love by being more palatable, more convenient, more packaged.
But I know better now.
And when the real one shows up; the one who feels like me frequency-wise, I’ll know it.
Because they’ll love this version.
This magic.
This mess.
This mystical, nonlinear, Spirit-led life.

A Note to the Reader:

If you’re grieving a past relationship while living a life that finally feels like you, let me say this:
They weren’t meant to stay.
Not because you failed, but because you expanded.
And they couldn’t come with you.

You didn’t lose love.
You found yourself.
And that’s the most sacred homecoming there is.