Every year, there's an alumni luncheon at my old high school. It was fun as it always is- I get free Bobbie subs from Capriotti's and such.

One thing that was absolutely hysterical was this holiday show performance called the "12 Joys of Cab", which makes fun of the teachers at the school. This year, one guy was singled out as the hot young teacher that girls won't stop drooling over- I mean, they absolutely ripped into him.

The funny thing was that this guy was none other than "Dave K", a guy who was two years ahead of me and graduated in 2003. He was what amounted to the high school alpha male jock at my school, only he was the leader of the popular punk artist straight-edge crowd. Dave K was in high school, as he apparently is again, the "hot guy" that everyone was drooling over, and as a consequence he was really egotistical and full of himself. First week of freshman year, he and his crowd decided to target me, and I was mocked pretty mercilessly by them as being fat, ugly, and annoying. Dave got the ball rolling, and his cronies JT and Dan ran with it. It was really bad freshman year, and their teasing didn't end until they finally graduated when I was a sophomore. People joined in because he was what amounted to the alpha male jock, and upperclassmen didn't even know what my actual name was because they called me by the "clever" mean nickname that he came up with for me. It wasn't until I was a junior and they were gone that high school really started becoming fun for me, and I finally felt free of that baggage. My last two years of high school, despite some angst, were so much better and those were the years when I finally started developing some self-worth about myself. And I realized that the more self-worth I had, the less it mattered what the conceited assholes thought about me. By my last semester in high school, *I* was the one comforting a freshman boy who was getting picked on by an upperclassmen with an overblown ego, and it was full circle moment.

It was funny to see this guy back at Cab as this high school teacher- a hot teacher apparently that jailbait is jumping on- but just a regular adult regardless instead of the "star" who could do no wrong that he was back then. Your bullies in middle and high school can seem larger than life because of the power they held over you, and then when you're no longer in the middle of that- you see how really ordinary and insignficiant they are.

In the ten years since those days, I've made some great relationships, graduated from college and grad school, and have partaken in some pretty great memories. I'm a far cry from the 9th grader who used to cry in the bathroom at lunch because of the bullying.

So you see, kids, things really do get better. Seeing one of my old high school bullies really reminded me of that.