I recently attended my 20-year high school reunion. I did not attend my 10-year reunion as I was protesting my classmates’ treatment of me. I was taunted in high school by the jocks, cheerleaders, and the popular kids for being gay and a weirdo.

I hung out with the freaks and ostracized. I was very popular, but not in a good way. I was the boy who got wads of paper thrown at him in the hallway. I even had gum thrown in my hair during biology class. I was never somebody in high school.

High school was not fun, but somehow I had romanticized it in my head and I just couldn't wait to go back for my reunion.

I look damn good for my age. No one guesses I am 38. I'm also relatively in good shape and that was another reason I couldn't wait to go back. I wanted to show all the jocks, who would now be fat and bald, that I was thin and gorgeous. I had chemical peels, microdermabrasion, laser pigment removal; everything to make sure I looked my best at my reunion. I wanted to walk in and knock their socks off. I wanted to be somebody.

I've done so many things since high school.

I've been to Europe with nothing but dreams and a backpack. I've been in a few rock bands. I've had my art hung in galleries and my art has graced the covers of magazines. I designed the logo for the Asheville Gay Pride. I've sung German opera in college. I've done so many crazy and wonderful things. I just could not wait to go back and rub all my accomplishments in every one's face. I wanted them to envy me. I wanted to be somebody.

I rented the Presidential Suite at the Marriott in downtown Columbia, SC. I wanted to go in style. I ordered Steak au Poivre from room service and soaked in lavender and chamomile bath salts in the spa. I had the concierge carry my bags. I ordered the hotel staff around like I was a movie star. I made them cower and bow to me at my every whim. I wanted to be somebody.

I arrived at the venue for my reunion, slapped my nametag on, and strolled into the ballroom with a shit-eating grin on my face. I turned the corner and looked across a sea of people I barely recognized. One by one their names popped back into my head. And one by one I remembered how much they taunted me and made my four years of high school unpleasant and dreary. I never belonged. It was not like a spoken thing, but I knew exactly where the line in the sand was drawn. I was never popular. I was the butt of jokes. But tonight, dammit, I was going to be the belle of the ball. I was going to be somebody.

It took about thirty minutes being with my old classmates to put me right back in high school again. I felt like the outsider. I became acutely aware of everything I did. I caught myself being nervous and feeling stupid. I reverted back to the stupid little boy I was in high school and I hated it. Nobody was fat and bald. Nobody really cared what I had done with my life. None of my close friends showed up. Everyone still lives around there and they still hang out with the same people. Everyone was the same.

I caught myself becoming emotional. I felt uncomfortable. The event I had built up in my head to be my crowning glory in front of the all the people who made me cry in the safety of my childhood bedroom had turned into lunch recess at Airport High School. I had to swallow hard and toke a good dose of reality and face the fact that to all those people, I was just what I was in high school...nobody.

I cried in the car on the way back to my hotel suite. I went to bed and woke up empty and in shock. What happened to my night? What happened to me telling them all to kiss my ass? What happened to my moment of showing them they did not break me?

Through out the next day I came to realize that I had not laid eyes on those people since graduation. I had vanished from their sight. They were not part of my life at all, so why did I care so much what they thought of me now? Why did they matter? A phone call from my childhood friend Patti, and a call from my friend Kelly Jean put everything into perspective.

The truth is those people do not mean anything. I had strived to impress people who really did not exist to me. I had foolishly and jejunely thought that if I could convince all my former classmates I was somebody then in fact I really was somebody.

Being somebody comes from within and not from outside sources. Talent and awareness is not a gift an outside person can bestow upon you. You create it yourself. You are nothing unless you are something to yourself.

As I hung the phone up with Patti after laughing about how crazy we were as kids and how much those stupid high school people were, her voice broke as she told me she loved me, then she stopped and said "Chuck... you are somebody to me."

In that instant, I was.