I was happy or so I thought, at the moment I was, shut up, closed up, locked up. Keeping my gifts tightly and deeply transported within my belly. Deep in my soul. I never had to think about planting a seed that could inspire greatness because I was emotionally wrapped up in my own thick shell of ignorant selfishness and not understanding that I am a gift of God, an insert in the world to be more, do more and heal more.

You see I wasn’t activated I was being shuffled around and shifted in the package of seeds with everyone else. I was being told how to be as a good girl, to hush my mouth, remember what goes on in this house stays in this house.  Girls aren’t loud, sit back, be quiet. Get our of men’s faces and stop being fass. Of course, I don’t have Mcdonald’s money, I’m not sure why that is even a question.  I just got a whipping because my sister cut her own hair when I wasn’t around, now you are going to give me something to cry for? I am further shuffled in the package.

In a world of learning and teaching, it can only be done from a place of knowledge. A seed can only teach how to be a seed.  A seed can’t teach to be a tree. A seed can only talk about seed shit. A seed can talk about small beginnings and the seed next door. A seed can talk about what is going to happen when they get out of their package.  And on the off chance that a seed is released from their package they may…become a sunflower, with some work.

I left my seed package by joining the military.  I moved around from place to place having seed conversations with other very kinds well-meaning seeds.  But, all of it was still a very familiar conversation of disbelief of the world around us. Questions of where I came from, what’s my religion and wondering if I am a Christian. Being a Christian is the only passing religion outside of being Catholic. I was still being bumped along in a bag of seeds that I thought I had escaped.

A seed can not and will not reach its full potential without being buried, being nurtured and being watered.

I was kicking around in those damned bags of seeds not reaching my full potential. I had to be buried, I had to go through something. I had to be separated from the rest. Sitting within the boundaries of my selfishness, unwilling to change, unforgiveness and judgment of what I thought a perfect life looked and felt and tasted. But I did everything I could to keep my perceived perfect life out of my reach.

I had to sit in my own pain for a while, be the mirror of my own transgressions. Deep in the pits of me, where there was nobody to perform for. In the depths of me, there wasn’t a reason to look and act pristine and perfect. I had to sit in my own shit. What I didn’t know at the time, is that my darkest moments and situations were nurturing me. Making me a stronger, more powerful version of me, a better and stronger me. Preparing me for greater.

The shifting in the package I used to feel on the outside of me, somehow was now on the inside of me. Moving and stirring, bumping around and it couldn’t be contained. That shifting started to transform me. I was being pushed from the sides toward my belly while I was being pulled upward through the rich dark soil of my past transgressions that once held me down. Years of being told and embracing what I thought was fact. What I can’t achieve as a black woman, I can’t be happy as a soldier, a woman can’t live in a trailer by the lake. Years of allowing people and myself to keep me as a seed. Allowing people to project their fears and insecurities on me using the names of love and protection as weapons to defeat me.

I shifted higher. The sun warming my leaves and the wind lifting my head higher. It was me, seed me, but different, calm, bold and confident.  There was silence all around me, I was afraid, yet excited. In the distance I could hear the seeds of my past calling out to me, trying to bring me back to them, but their voices were muffled by the packaging of the world, television, and forced expectations.  

I am brand new with a foundation of my past and hope for my future.  I come with the hope of bumping other seeds out of their bags of quilted mediocrity and into the soil of transformation.