A long time ago, probably eleven whole years that have have passed without definition, my tears lined my cheeks like dew in the early morning.

You see, I was taught to be a chameleon; to change my colors for the surroundings I was given. I was taught, in the face of others, to be like a building made from a blueprint that a million other buildings share. I was taught to be whole and happy and brave instead of fractured in this thing they call “different.” I was taught to be that chameleon to match the colors of others; to match their ideals of how a person should act, should dress, should talk, should be.

I was five.

Eleven years later I stand, and I think we should apologize to all the people in the world whose colors we changed, whose memories we were a part of that frosted over and now are just pieces of lives we wasted, trying to force those souls to be everything we wanted to be.

Because the world is such an awful place. It's a platform for colors, but the only color that shows is gray: gray like all the colors mixed together in a washing machine too many times; gray like the death of individuality, gray like the monster I used to be.

So now I think I should apologize to myself: for letting myself be swayed into thinking I wasn’t good enough for the world, so I became a chameleon to live in the form that I never was.

I am sorry.

So now, I challenge you to be the person you are no matter what they think. I challenge you to be yourself, because it’s a hard thing to do. Every move you make doesn’t have to be for the people who tell you to, every path you carve doesn’t have to light up the ideals of others.

YOU are a chameleon. But you are a chameleon that blends with your own style. I believe that all people should be held responsible to be the people they want to be, and not what others tell them to. I believe in individuality, and that your colors will live on as long as you cultivate them and never let them become dull because you are living in a platform full of gray.

You see, I was taught to be a chameleon; to change my colors for the surroundings I was given; I was taught to match the colors of others; to match their ideals of how a person should act, should dress, should talk, should be.

But now I know different. And I hope you do too. I hope that the whole world learns to live in their own colors so we don’t have to stare up at a gray sky, but dream in a rainbow.