“I guess I just got lost
Being someone else
I tried to kill the pain
Nothin’ ever helped
I left myself behind
Somewhere along the way
Hoping to come back around
To find myself someday”
3 Doors Down – Let Me By Myself
Pride Month has always felt like a celebration (at least in my time), but for a lot of people it has also felt like a journey. I won’t rehash all of that as we’ve talked about it previous posts but there’s a lot that goes into it all. All journeys are different, we walk different paths, take different turns, make different choices, face unique situations, and all arrive when we’re ready to.
As June continues and Pride Month settles into its rhythm, I’m continuing my participation in Pride At Home’s Pride Month Color Block Challenge. This time around, I’ve landed on green, the color traditionally associated with nature. After spending time with life, healing, and sunlight through the first three colors, green is the natural next step.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about this challenge is how differently each color can be interpreted. While every color carries its own traditional meaning, there’s also room to explore what those ideas mean on a personal level. Green ended up taking me somewhere I wasn’t entirely expecting. Traditionally, green represents nature on the Pride flag. At first glance, that seems pretty straightforward. Nature surrounds us every day. Trees, flowers, forests, gardens, and everything else that grows around us. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that green isn’t really about nature itself. It’s about what nature teaches us. Growth.
Not the kind measured by accomplishments or milestones, but the quieter kind. The kind that happens over time. The kind you often don’t notice until you stop, look back, and realize how much you’ve changed. Looking at my own progression of this challenge, green is the natural next step. Red was about life. Orange focused on healing. Yellow embraced sunlight, visibility, and allowing yourself to be seen. Green asks a different question. 🌿
What happens after that? What happens when you’ve survived, are healing or healed, and stepped into the light? You grow. But the more I sat with the meaning of green, the more I found myself thinking about authenticity. Nature has a way of being exactly what it is. Trees don’t compare themselves to flowers. Flowers don’t compare themselves to rivers. Nothing in nature spends its time wondering if it’s growing correctly. It simply grows according to its own design. People aren’t always that lucky (no pun intended, but it’s not lost on me trust).
So much of life can be spent trying to fit expectations that were never really ours. Expectations from family, society, friends, coworkers, or even the versions of ourselves we thought we were supposed to become. Sometimes growth isn’t about adding something new. Sometimes it’s about peeling those layers away until you’re left with the person who was there all along.
That’s what drew me to Let Me Be Myself by 3 Doors Down. The song isn’t really asking for permission. It’s asking for acceptance. It speaks to that desire to stop performing, stop pretending, and stop shaping yourself around what everyone else expects. The older I get, the more I realize how much energy gets wasted trying to be the person other people want us to be. Real growth begins when that energy gets redirected toward becoming the person we want to be.
For many LGBTQIA+ people, that idea feels especially familiar. Pride is often associated with visibility, and rightfully so, but visibility is only part of the story. Being seen matters. Being accepted matters. But eventually there comes a point where the focus shifts away from proving who you are and toward simply living as that person. That’s where growth happens. Not when everything is figured out. Not when life becomes perfect. Not when all the questions have been answered.
Growth happens when we stop apologizing for taking up space. When we stop measuring ourselves against expectations that don’t fit. When we give ourselves permission to evolve into the people we were always meant to become. Maybe that’s why green has always resonated with me so much. It’s a reminder that growth doesn’t have to be dramatic to be meaningful. Some of the most important changes happen quietly. Confidence replaces doubt. Authenticity replaces fear. Acceptance replaces the need for approval. Those changes might not always be visible to other people, but they’re often the ones that matter most.
There’s also something comforting about the idea that growth never really ends. No matter where we are in life, we’re still learning. Still evolving. Still discovering new things about ourselves. The person I am today isn’t the same person I was five years ago, and hopefully five years from now I’ll be able to say the same thing again. Maybe that’s the lesson green has been trying to teach me all along. Growth isn’t about becoming someone different. It’s about becoming more fully yourself.
When it came time to put the photo together, I found myself heading in a completely different direction than I originally expected. Rather than taking a modern approach, I leaned heavily into fantasy influences for this one. Green immediately made me think of forests, ancient magic, and the kinds of fantasy worlds where nature feels alive in every corner. To create the look, I started with the {Aii & Ego} Forest Nymph outfit and paired it with {Aii}’s Demonic Touch BOM fingers (absolutely borrowing inspiration from Lemony so credit there.) and PENDELUM’s ILBRYN earrings. The combination gave me the fantasy elf aesthetic I was looking for and felt like something pulled straight from the pages of a fantasy novel.
The scene came together around that idea. MINIMAL’s Vertical Gardens II provided the foundation, while Botanical’s Seasonal Maple Trees and Skye’s Temperate Shrubs helped fill the scene with layers of greenery and texture. I used E.V.E’s Big Bubble as the focal point, creating a visual element that immediately drew the eye and helped tie everything together. One of the things I enjoy most about challenges like this is that they encourage me to experiment with styles I might not normally gravitate toward. This isn’t a look I wear every day, which made the process even more fun. Sometimes all it takes is a single color or theme to push you in a creative direction you might not have considered otherwise.
As this Pride Month Color Block Challenge continues, green feels like a reminder that the journey doesn’t end once we find ourselves. If anything, that’s where the next chapter begins. Growth isn’t a destination waiting somewhere down the road. It’s an ongoing process of learning, evolving, and becoming. And just like nature, we’re all still growing. Credits for everything can be found below as always, and I’ll see you next in blue. 💙
Pride At Home Presents : Pride Month Color Block Challenge
Celebrate Pride by bringing the colors of the rainbow to life!
Create an original “color block” photograph centered around ONE of the six classic rainbow colors:
Red • Orange • Yellow • Green • Blue • Violet
Your chosen color should dominate the entire image – clothing, makeup, props, lighting, background, accessories, styling, everything!
Make your color the star of the shot, well, as well as you, obviously!
Your photo must be:
– Original
– Taken by you
– Focused on one single rainbow color
That’s it. Simple, bold, creative.
Pose alone, collaborate with friends, or have fun with a group. Whether your style is glamorous, dramatic, minimal, surreal, cozy, futuristic, or chaotic – we want to see YOUR vision.
Selected submissions will be displayed in the in-world Art Gallery on the Pride At Home sim throughout June, and may also be featured across our social media and future Pride At Home projects.
How to Submit? Post your photo on the social platform of your choice and tag us, or share it directly in the Pride At Home server.
Can’t Pick a Color? Tell us and we’ll choose one for you.
Most importantly:
Have fun with it, get creative, and make your color shine.
We can’t wait to see what you create!
“I’ll never find my heart
Behind someone else
I’ll never see the light of day
Living in this cell
It’s time to make my way
Into the world I knew”
3 Doors Down – Let Me Be Myself
Credits:
Head: LeLUTKA.Head.NOA.4.0 ~ Jaden Nova
Head Applier: VELOUR: NICOLAS FANTASY Skin for Evo X (BEAST) ~ Kiria Mama
Hair: [MFCNT] THOR Bun – Grooming Hair – LeBarbier Alpha
Hairbase: LeLUTKA.EvoX.Hairbase.044 (BOM) ~ Jaden Nova (Comes with the LeLUTKA NOA Head)
Eyes: Avi-Glam. Bedazzled Eyes – Pack 2 ~ Eye Daddy
Beard: [MFCNT] Ducky Skunk Beard & Stache – LeBarbier Alpha
Beard Layer: [MR] Jimmi Facial Hair for EvoX Heads Style 1 ~ Daniel Whiskers
Body: [LEGACY] Athletic Edition (1.7.1) ~ MeshBody Resident
Skin: VELOUR: PICASSO HOMME Skin for Legacy (DEMON/BEAST) Picasso Neck ~ Kiria Mama
Fingers: {Aii} Demonic Touch – bom/fingers ~ Lulu Resident
Tattoo: +Nuuna+ Aili ~ Nuuna Nitely
Outfit: {Aii & Ego} Forest Nymph FullBody (Athletic) ~ Lulu Resident
Earrings: PENDULUM – ILBRYN . Evo X [M] – Gold ~ HCXII Resident
~Scene~
Pose: * !R.O! * Foreseen BENTO Pose ~ Lyriqz Xue
Trees: Botanical – Maple Trees ~ Kriss Lehmann
Shrubs: Skye Temperate Shrubs ~ Alex Bader
Backgrounds: MINIMAL – Vertical Garden II ~ MINIMALgroup Resident
Orb: E.V.E Dancing Bubbles & Fireflies {M/C} Big Bubble {Green} ~ Noke Yuitza