Let Your Colors Fly

When I was a senior in college, I was writing a paper in culmination of a semester long independent study on Stress and Dreaming.  During that time, I had many very interesting dreams.
I was stressed.
My dreams related well to the stress.
I still remember one particular dream in which I was having a conversation with a friend about (hold your breath) Homosexuality.  In the dream, I said to my friend (who was black),
"Yes, but you CAN'T hide who you are, I can."
And what I meant (in the dream) by saying that, was that my friend had no choice but to be who she is.....(in the sense of wearing the color of her skin on the surface.....nothing to do with the heart, per se).  I, on the other hand, had the choice.  I could BE who I was, OR I could hide behind any particular expression of self that I chose.  No one would look at my skin and see me as "different".  
I HAD to make a choice -- Should I attempt to "blend in" to be perceived as "normal", or should I let my True Colors shine....(fly the rainbow flag, in other words).  Upon waking, I really thought about it all, I let me colors shine....just as I had been doing prior to that, but the dreamed confirmed for me that the way to be was to continue to be ME.....that was 16 years ago.  At that time, I felt like we were making so much progress in regard to openness and acceptance of ALL Humankind, and in many ways we were.
Tonight, I look back at the progress that we have made and I'm just not sure how far we have come......

The moral of the story?
Be YOU.  LET YOUR Light Shine...SHINE IT for all to see, and if they don't want your Light, then shine it anyway.  At least the path will be illuminated!