Black Girls Living Lavishly

A soft life told in sharp truths. What I learned when I stopped shrinking to be loved.

By Chrystal Anderson

I was the girl who gave too much, explained too much, stayed too long.
I romanticized red flags and called it love.
I kept the peace at my own expense.
I mastered survival but hadn’t yet tasted freedom.

This series is a collection of reflections, love letters, and spiritual downloads from a woman who walked away from the performance of being “good” and into the embodied truth of being whole.

These are notes on love, loss, pleasure, power, healing, and the sacred reclamation of self.
If you’ve ever been too kind, too soft, too strong, or too magical for the rooms you were in, you’re not alone.
Welcome home.

I Couldn’t Give Her That

Notes from a Former Good Girl – Entry #1

We were shoulder-deep in the waves in Puerto Rico; the kind that crash gently and cradle you at the same time. She wrapped her arms around me and carried me through the water like I weighed nothing, and for a moment, everything was soft, free, true.
San Juan was alive with love that day. There were queer couples holding hands, laughter echoing across the shore, and for once, we were just two women in love, not two women trying to survive love. And in the middle of it, she whispered:

“This is what I’ve always wanted to feel with someone.”

I said, “Me too.”
And I meant it.

We were five months into our relationship. It was long enough to fall deeply, but not long enough to know what we were truly made of. And looking back, I think that was the moment it started to unravel. Because everything was right. And sometimes, right feels terrifying to people who have only known wrong.

She didn’t leave because I was lacking.

She left because I couldn’t give her what she was used to:

• I couldn’t give her chaos.
• I couldn’t give her anxiety masked as passion.
• I couldn’t give her performance, or control, or the hot/cold cycles that feel like home to a nervous system trained by trauma.

I gave her peace.
I gave her play.
I gave her the feeling she said she always wanted. And that’s when she began looking for reasons to run.

I’ve had time to understand it now.

Her circle was bonded by chaos; breaking up, making up, dramatics in the group chat. They were normally cycling through toxic love stories. And here I was, soft, grounded, laughing without reservation, loving without performance.

I didn’t argue.
I didn’t withhold.
I didn’t try to make her earn my presence.

To them? That looked suspicious.

They had no proof that love could be calm.
So they convinced her it must be fake.

I couldn’t give her that.

And I won’t ever again.

I’ve spent the last few years coming home to myself after betrayal, burnout, and the slow rebuild of my own nervous system. Now that I’m reconnected to my essence, to pleasure, and to grounded joy, I realize that I was never too good to be true.

I was just too unfamiliar to someone who had never met real love.

And that’s not arrogance. That’s clarity.

So I bless her.
I release the story.
And I choose to stay; not in a relationship, but in me.

In my peace.
In my body.
In my readiness for love that can hold what I carry.

Because I’m not here to reenact old wounds.
I’m here to build a life that doesn’t require me to break myself into pieces to be held.

A Note to the Reader:

If you’ve ever been left, not because you did anything wrong, but because you did everything right; this is your reminder:
You weren’t too much.
You were the first taste of peace in a world addicted to pain.
And that kind of medicine?
Not everyone is ready for it.

But someone will be.
And they’ll thank God every day that you didn’t change.