My Ten Year Reunion, or How I learned to stop worrying and love my tree trunk legs

I've been dreading my upcoming high school reunion because I didn't want to go back home without having done anything significant. The ten year reunion is next year, supposedly, and I swore to myself that I would accomplish something before I went. I didn't want to have to Romy and Michele it because I have the worst time remembering my fake stories.

My biggest fear was that everyone would be flaunting their wonderful lives in front of me, the single fag with a so-so job who frequents bars and has tons of meaningless gay sex while living in a studio apartment. I hadn't done ANYTHING since I graduated and I couldn't just go and be an ordinary person there. I'm Richie, for fuck's sake!

I toyed around with the notion of being on a reality show like "I Want to be a Soap Star" or "Who Wants to be a Superhero?", but I would just die if Joel McHale made fun of me on "The Soup." Being insulted by a really cute person is worse than hearing your boyfriend tell you that he's leaving you for someone cuter who never graduated from high school.

Last April, I decided to train for the Chicago Marathon. I wanted to do something that I knew no one else in my graduating class would do. It started out that way, but I didn't expect it to change my life the way it did. I just thought that I'd do it and cross it off my list of things to do like a person would do if he or she found out that he only had months to live.

I kept thinking to myself in the first few months that "YEAH! I'm gonna show them! I'm gonna do it!" Then the day of the race came and I was shocked to learn that a lot of the new friends I've made since moving to Chicago had come out to support me along the way. They braved the cold temperatures and waited hours for me just to catch a glimpse and a quick hug as I ran past.

The feeling of having a network of friends who were actually more like family made me forget about the initial reason for starting this whole crazy marathon madness. I then realized that I got a lot more out of this experience than I'd planned.

I wanted to go back home and show everyone that I was no longer the awkward little closet case who got made fun of because of the way he walked and talked. Now I know that I don't need to do shit to impress anyone back home because I've come out on top. Just think of how fabulous it'll be for me to be the only out and proud gay boy at the reunion who will have ran two marathons and got to use the urinal next to Kevin Smith during the premiere of Jersey Girl! I'm not so ordinary, now am I?