I never understood the appeal of a rainbow.  A rainbow represents many different things, one of them being pride. I was very impressionable and gullible to the way society swayed. I desperately was looking for the validation of others when I first came out.

   Everyone has their likes and dislikes and society moves just as freely. It’s very different when your key aspect is something you can’t change. No one is saying that you must like these things accordingly to feel like you fit in. But life is so much easier when you do. Everyone is taught to take pride in the things that make them different. In the end, society values obedience. There are repercussions to even being slightly different from the crowd. If you aren’t the same, you can’t empathize with them. You can’t understand each other, and when they don’t understand. They reject and detest. Attempting to live abroad your differences makes life very challenging day and throughout. You’re faced with decisions a normal person would never face. It makes life sometimes unbearable. 

   I hated every aspect of myself for being gay. It was something I had to live with forever. It was a burden to me and I wished for a very long time that I was born a normal kid, who never had the worries like I had.

   I started to get very tired of living. It was exhausting to me and I was just making it more difficult by rejecting myself. Getting up was becoming tiring and a chore. I was betraying myself and hated every aspect of myself.

   I learned that keeping secrets isn’t a sin or abnormality. Everyone has them. We are more alike than we like to think we are. Society gave me the impression that I shouldn’t be myself because it wasn’t the way everyone else expected me to be. Everyone withholds aspects of themselves because they’re afraid that it’s the worst part of them. I realized how important is to take pride in your differences. I realized the importance of a rainbow.