I've posted this before, but it fits here.

A few years back I was the assistant manager at my karate studio. It was a slow, quiet day when in walked Paul, my old bully from public school. I wasn't sure at first, it had been a long time, and it was hard to tell.

I didn't say anything. Paul was interested in joining the dojo, and I showed him around, discussed pricing, etc. I didn't treat him any differently than I would any other potential client.

At the end of the tour, Paul decided to join our dojo. We sat down in the office and he filled out the paperwork. When he wrote his name out on the application, I knew for sure that this was, indeed, my old bully. The guy who used to torment me every single weekday. Who made me kneel in dog crap.

I still didn't say anything until after pre-paid me for an entire year's membership. As I walked him to the door, I smiled.

"I'm really looking forward to training with you." I smiled.

"Thanks, me too," Paul said.

"You don't recognize me, do you?"

"No, should I?"

"Yes. We went to school together, Grade 3 through 8. You bullied me every day and made my life miserable. Can't wait to see you in class."

Paul went white and walked out without another word. And never walked back in. He willingly threw away a year's membership payment, almost $500, rather than have to be in the same class as me.

I befriended a larger red-headed girl when I was in grade 3 or 4. She was new to the school, everyone had their own friends and no one accepted her. I didn't have many friends so I gladly accepted her. We became best friends.

Fast forward to middle school. She was still large but got boobs and wore makeup, so she became popular. I was still a way too tall and too thin awkward girl with a lisp. Everyone made fun of me and she joined in so she could be cool. It got worse and worse until she started instigating it, would circle beat me with other girls and egg my house.

Fast forward again to high school. I filled out a bit and got better friends. About halfway through grade 11 people started realizing how mean and fake she had become and turning on her. She was crying in the hall one day and I went up to her, asked if she was ok and offered my phone to her if she needed to call her mom. She transferred schools for grade 12 because now she was being bullied. Funny thing is, I still feel bad for her. Bullying sucks.

In 8th grade (age 13-14), this kid threw a wooden block at me, probably thinking, "Oh, let's pick on the punk girl, that'll be so hysterical!" I blacked out for a good 10-15 seconds after it clocked me in the head. When I came to, he and his friends were all on the ground laughing at how funny this was. I ended up having to go to urgent care and not participate in gym class for a few days.

His mom was on the school board and had a large role in the financial decisions of the school, so the administration was afraid to punish him and did nothing. My math teacher was this kid's football coach and made him run extra while everyone else got to take a food/water break, but that was the only justice I got.

Fast forward two years: everyone is freaking out that this guy can't play football for the JV team that year. He ended up spraining his back and breaking a few ribs from a stupid post-party escapade into the woods the week before his sophomore year started, and the concussion that he sustained from this was severe enough that a second concussion could have caused serious mental damage.

Two years isn't that long of a time, but considering there were witnesses and the kid should have been arrested and suspended at the very least, it seemed like a long time to wait for karma.

In middle school, I knew this Juggalo kid named Eric that was a pretty big dick to me. He was older and had failed a couple of times, and because of his style (and the fact that he once showed to school with clown paint), he was known as 'Clown' to most. He harassed me as often as he could, once lighting part of my hair on fire at the skating rink and pretty much stole my first girlfriend from me. He ended up getting expelled for decking an older female teacher in the face.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school. I'm hanging out with some friends and a preview for the nightly news comes on. The top story that night was about a deadly assault. The guilty party? You guessed it. Clown is now doing life without parole.

A guy I went to high-school with "friended" me on Facebook. He was caught stealing from my house once back then, bragging about it to mutual friends (whom he thought would not tell me). After the incident we never spoke, although we had the same circle of friends, I kept my distance, he kept his.

Flash forward 20 years to now and we were "friends" on Facebook. I have a pretty cool job in the music industry, good money and I travel the world. I usually add these former "friends" just so they can see my life turned out pretty awesome while most of them are in our old home town working crap jobs...anyway.

He updated his status saying that he was devastated that someone stole something from his son and karma this, blah blah blah. Amongst all the posts from his friends being sorry for him, I simply wrote something like "Yeah, it's really terrible when someone steals from you eh? That must really suck. Karma does have its way of evening things out though." I immediately started getting PMs from mutual friends congratulating me, who remembered the incident in school. He "un-friended" me after that to my extreme pleasure.

When I was in 5th grade, there was a kid who spit on me and bullied me for about 2 months on the bus. When he moved to another bus route I thought I would never get a chance for revenge.

But one day at a Little League baseball game I was playing in, I saw him on the opposing team and my blood started boiling. He was the 2nd baseman and he would laugh whenever I would go up to hit the ball.

In the last inning, I was up to hit and missed the ball twice and heard him laughing from 2nd base. That got me really mad and when the pitcher threw the ball I hit a line drive straight for the bully's face. (I'm not a great hitter; I just got lucky.)

After it hit him, he dropped and cried and the players ran over to him, but no one called time out so I ran all the way to 3rd base without getting out.

I sat there on 3rd with a HUGE smirk on my face while they picked him up and walked him to the dugout. I didn't feel bad about it all and still don't feel bad about it.

From third through sixth grade, this punk made my life a nightmare. That fat turd Lenny had a gang even.

Fast forward to just after college, making real money for the first time. I go to a shop to buy a high-end sound upgrade for my new car and guess who's there. Lenny, crappy shirt and tie and all.

Salesman shuffles up to me and I say, "Hiya, Lenny. I'm here to buy, but not from you." I walked over to another salesman and requested his assistance instead.

I spent over twice as much as I intended to, sort of my version of both middle fingers in the air. The look of hatred on Lenny's face as I pulled out the credit card made 8-year-old me very content. Worth it!

I was a really small freshman in high school (like 5'2") and looked like I was probably 12. I was always picked on for being the smallest. I transferred to a private school and fast forward 3 years and I go to a party with all the kids from my old school.

I see one of the kids that always had it out for me because he was bigger at the time. I'm now 6'1", obviously a lot bigger than before. So he talks some crap to me and I give it back. He shoves me and without even thinking I one-punch KO's this chucklehead in front of about 80 people. Everyone thought I was a freaking hero.

I was the nerdy picked-on kid in school. Almost 10 years after graduating from high school, one of the guys who used to give me a hard time contacted me on Facebook.

Apologized for being an idiot, then asked for advice on going to college for the thing I have a bachelor of sciences in. I helped him. It's important not to carry anger around with you for your entire life. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good.

This jerk who used to torture the crap out of me when I was in 7th grade, insisted I was ugly and should kill end it all, is now on OkCupid. A few weeks ago, before I got into a relationship, he asked if we went to school together and told me I was hot. He didn't recognize me, clearly, but it was delicious to know he'd been searching for months and no one was biting.

For clarity, I am not suggesting anything about my looks with the last part. I just take great delight in him being alone right now despite all the try-hard and being on the actual website for months without success. I never went on a date with him, I just deleted his message.

I once got punched in the pregnant stomach by my ex-fiance (not the father of my baby). I told him that I hope he got hit by a car.

Three days later I found out that he was struck by a truck while riding his bicycle to a friend's house. He survived but had to have extensive surgery to correct his broken bones and save his life. He was uninsured so now he's stuck with crippling hospital debt from being in ICU and having surgery. I did not have to wait very long for that one.

I should note that he punched me hard enough to where I was bleeding. I had to go to the hospital. Cops were called, but they chalked it up as "suspicious activity", but he now has some sort of record in the shape of a police report against him.

When I was about 8 and my brother was 11, he got in trouble for punching a kid in the face on the school bus (my brother claims he was defending someone else...I don't really remember it all that clearly). My brother paid the price, was banned from the bus for a while, faced repercussions at school, and my mom made him apologize to the kid he punched in person.

A couple of months after the incident, the mother of the kid he punched decided to flip the crazy switch and sued my parents for mental anguish, claiming that her son now had crippling emotional problems stemming from the incident. She showed up at board meetings, tried to get my brother expelled, painted a picture of my family as shady and my brother as a delinquent and violent.

My parents ended up escaping the legal battle with a little bit of dignity intact, but feeling ostracized in our community of 90 people.

Fast forward. I'm now 27, my brother is 30. My Mom sends a newspaper clipping to him in the mail. It's the indictment of the crazy mom from our childhood. Come to find out, she had been embezzling money from her employer for 5 years, totaling more than $50,000. May have taken two decades, but she finally got what was meant for her.

I dated this girl for a year or so. She broke up with me and immediately started dating another guy. I went to talk to her and he basically told me, "Look she wants to be with me. I have a job and she needs someone stable in her life. You're a loser who's going nowhere."

...His job was as a line cook and he was in a band part time. Real career prospects.

About a week ago I went to a friend's house to play poker and this guy happened to be there by coincidence. We acted like men and just pretended nothing had ever happened. He had a couple of drinks and asked me what I do. I graduated from college and make very good money as a consultant for a very large and well-known company. I ask him the same. He is going to truck driving school because he's had like 9 jobs in 7 years and my ex is pregnant with his baby (the second baby of his by his second girl).

The type of job is not the point, it's more that he can't hold a single job down for longer than a year or so. ALSO, they aren't together anymore. She already has a kid, she is preg with his, and he has a kid by another woman. They were engaged and she left him because, as it turns out, he is a loser who can't keep a job.

A guy in high school really went after me a lot. We got into a big fight (he broke my nose and I knocked a couple of his teeth out) off-campus. No police were involved but about 10 years later I saw him sleeping on the street near where I worked.

I woke him up and asked him what was going on. He told me about his life after high school. He knocked up his girlfriend, her parents made them get married, divorced a year later. He got into partying too hard and ended up alienating everyone. I asked him if he was still using and he said no, he couldn't afford it anyway.

I felt bad for him so I asked if he'd like to stay in my guesthouse (a one-room cottage, set up like an efficiency apartment) for a while. He took me up on it and got a night's sleep in an actual bed for the first time in years (his words). I bought him some clothes and fed him for about a month until I found him a job with a contractor I was doing some work for.

Long story short, it's been 6 years, he now owns a contracting business, has a wife and a new baby boy, and just bought the house down the street from me.

When I was a kid, I was fat. I used to get picked on all the time by this kid at church named Rusty. He was about five years older than me and every couple of weeks he would beat me up.

I moved away when I was about 14, and thankfully, I didn't have to deal with him anymore.

When I went to college, I decided to get my act together and get healthy. To that end, I started taking mixed martial arts. I did it for about two years and lost about 40 pounds.

When I graduated, I moved back to where I was from and started looking for a new MMA gym. I went to the most reputable one, and who should be there, but Rusty. It sounds too good to be true, but I swear to God, it happened.

He hadn't changed a bit. The first thing he said to me was "Finally trying to learn to defend yourself, huh?"

I had called ahead and the instructor knew my deal and had arranged for me to come to watch. I left my gear in the car. At the end of class, they do free rolling; Ju Jitsu sparring.

Rusty comes up to me, having no knowledge that I am the least bit experienced, and starts begging the instructor to let him spar me, so he can "show me the ropes". After all, he's been in MMA for three months now, AND he never misses a UFC pay-per-view.

I went outside and changed. Long story short, we sparred, and I choked him out three times. Afterward, I signed up for classes, he grabbed his bag, left, and never came back.

This is my favorite story out of everything that has happened in my life thus far. I'm the only person I know that got to beat up my childhood bully as an adult.

I go into my mechanic to change my brakes. The usual cashier offers me coffee, I make small talk (been going there forever, they're an honest car repair shop, believe it or not). Then I notice the guy hunched over a Honda.

I call out. He turns, squints his eyes, goes ''...Jim?'' I call him out on his behavior, he tells me he's straightened up after mouthing off to the wrong person nearly cost him his life (he showed me a shank wound 3cm under his heart). He's apparently happily finishing a course in auto repair and had just been hired at the garage.

He turns out to be a nice guy, having sorted out his issues. I routinely bring him donuts when I bring the car in and he gets me rebates because dude, I brought donuts.

Ours was extremely smart and very athletic, he was an incredible wrestler and undefeated throughout highschool.

I saw him at a party at a friend's house randomly and we caught eyes a few times and eventually, we just approached each other and said hello, exchanged bro hugs. Mind you, we hardly talked. The only time we really did was when I told him to stop picking on someone and told me he would beat me up instead. He was a lovely guy.

Anyway, he hadn't changed one bit. He tried to pick fights with people throughout the night and kept looking at me while he was in yelling matches with people. So I kept getting in between him and the other person telling them both to calm down. This happened a few times until it started getting a little physical and he looked at me again.

So I stood up and he tried to push the guy one more time, so I grabbed him by his shoulders and started pushing him back telling him to cool it and I thought "What the heck am I doing? He is an angry wrestler that can take me down..." Once I got him back a ways and told him to knock it off he just looked at me and said, "You know what I could do to that guy, but I don't want to. Please, stop me."

It was the saddest "HOLD ME BACK BRO" moment I have ever been a part of. It was odd that he kept looking for me to stop his fights, but I was glad I was that guy for a bit.

I own my own gym and have for a few years now. I received a message one day from a familiar-looking name on the business' Facebook page from a woman asking to come try us out. We set it up, she comes in for an introduction, she's very out of shape at this point. After about 5 minutes of working with her, it hits me that this lady used to be about half her current size and was an absolute piece of work in her hay day.

I decided not to bring it up to her as she appeared to be struggling in life and came to us in a time of need and I took it, as I do with all of my clients, as a cry for help. Not to mention, I'm a grown man now and that seemed pretty silly and insignificant in life today.

Months later during one of the classes, I noticed her struggling real hard so I go over to offer some encouragement. As I leaned down to say something to her, I notice she's crying faintly to herself. She looks up at me and quietly says, "Sorry for how nasty I was to you years ago and thank you for doing this for me."

Turns out an old mutual friend told her about my place and she recognized me as the owner and came to me on purpose.

No, not a story of revenge or retribution, but, she reached out to someone she was terrible to and today, she's re-purposed and I find it to be quite inspiring.

This girl used to torment me all through high school and middle school. Really went out of her way to tear me down. Whenever we had a class together, she would make her extreme dislike for me apparent and, of course, other kids followed. I couldn't open my mouth without some kind of ridicule. Of course, I was miserable, and my dad would try to cheer me up. "Don't worry kiddo, one day she'll be working at a McDonalds and serving you fries." He actually referred to her as McDonald's for years.

A couple of years after graduating high school I went to a Hardee's with my dad. And there was McDonald's behind the counter. So I go up to place my order and before I finish she says, "you don't remember me, do you?"

"Oh, I remember you."

"Oh... so, would you like fries with that?"

"Why yes, yes I would."

Way to go, dad. Called it 9 years in advance.

I had a grade 11 history teacher who picked on me, insulted me in front of the class and gave me crap grades. He told me he would never send his own children to public school with such morons.

Fast forward 5 years or so, I'm almost finished my first degree and have made all A's in university so far. The crappy teacher comes into the physiotherapy clinic I'm working at. My coworker deals with him and I tell her the story.

When he comes back to book his next appointment, my coworker started talking about me as if she didn't know he had been my teacher. Bragged about how she loved mentoring students who are doing so well in school and how successful I had been at work so far. He never returned for his second appointment.

Kendal was the little jerkwad bully, his older brother Adrian was my friend. Kendal made my life in high school a living nightmare, lots of teasing. He beat the crap out of me in the gym lockers one winter, took my clothes and left me to walk home naked. But Adrian and I joined the Army together.

Years later, Adrian was in my unit, a different platoon, and was killed in Iraq. I volunteered to fly with his body back home for his family. Kendal never showed up, not even to the funeral. I heard that he was shacked up downtown and running with a bad crowd. So I went over there, kicked in the door, dragged Kendal out by his hair, and pushed and kicked and dragged him the two and a half miles to the cemetery where I had buried his brother that morning, berating him for how horrible of a person he was.

Kendal was a bloody mess by the time we got to his brother's grave. I told him he needed to turn his life around because he was an ungrateful piece of garbage, then I left him there.

A year later, on the anniversary of Adrian's death, I returned to his grave. Kendal was waiting for me. He was cleaned up and sober and apologized to me incessantly. After lunch, he asked me to take him down to the recruiter's office to join up and make his brother proud.

This was one of the greatest moments of my life.

My dad is a very large man. We're talking 6'7" 300 lbs big. He would always tell me this story to cheer me up when girls would be mean to me:

He was pretty chubby in high school so he played football and was good at it, but just really loved playing basketball. So his freshman year he tried out for the team and didn't make it. The coach, who was a history teacher at the school, stated his weight as an issue. Fair enough, he worked hard to lose some weight over the summer blah blah blah.

Fast forward to sophomore year: ends up having the coach as his history teacher. Great, he thinks. He can be a good student and hopefully get on the team. Wrong. This ADULT MAN decided to call my father names related to his weight and harass him in front of the class. Not cool but my Dad was too proud and never said anything. He ended up making varsity his sophomore year because of a coaching change.

Fast forward about 5 years my Dad was working as a bouncer at a bar in a nearby town to where he went to school. It was a regular night when who walks in? Idiot history teacher. Perfect. He thinks "ah I'll let it go, be professional." Until the teacher calls out my dad as "the chubby kid who was a coward".

My dad looks at him and says, "Sir, I think you've had too much to drink, its time for you to go home." The coach is saying no, no I'm fine, etc. My dad grabs him by his shirt and says, "No, it's time for you to step outside, you have had too much to drink."

The coach decides to swing at my dad and that's when he loses it.  Dad says, "This is for all the kids you've called fat you piece of crap" and proceeds to beat the tar out of him.

A long story I know, but my favorite by far. My dad and his old bouncer friends always tell it when they get together too. Ahhh revenge.

At the tender age of 14, and standing a bit over five feet tall I was sent to boarding school. I had braces, a "body-perm", and weighed not more than 70 pounds. About as scared as a rabbit in a thunderstorm, I kept my head low and tried to stay "under the radar".

A group of older girls somehow noticed me anyhow and began harassing me -- at first in small ways such as making snide remarks, but quickly escalating to physical bullying. One of the girls in particular seemed to really have it out for me and long after the others lost interest, she'd still openly make fun of me and corner me at every opportunity.

I'd lie in my bed at night conjuring all sorts of scenarios in which I could humiliate her. It was all for naught, though, as the morning would come and I'd still be the nerdy little kid who'd be wise not to try anything. She'd still be the big-boobed popular girl who walked around pulling a wake of disciples in her path.

Many years later, now standing well over six feet tall and known within my circle of business as an attractive woman who was not to be messed with, I scheduled a lunch meeting with a few possible vendors to be located at the shopping mall I was helping develop.

Seated with representatives from Radio Shack, Sears, and a few others, our waitress approached the table. She was a wreck of a woman -- crispy-fried bleached-blond hair, pock-marked complexion, and cheap clothing stretched over a body several pounds too large for it. As she fumbled around for a pen in her apron, our eyes met and it would be difficult to describe what was exchanged wordlessly as we recognized each other. The tables had turned dramatically. Vengeance was mine.

I said it was nice to see her after all these years, and that I couldn't think of anyone I'd be happier to have as my server. The meeting went well, table service was impeccable, and I left a tip equal to our tab for the meal. I haven't seen her since, but now when I think of her I get all warm and tingly with the deliciousness of winning.

Dealt with a bully in high school. Smaller guy, made up for it by being really, really aggressive. I was kind of small, too, so he could push me around. Not really a lot of constant bullying, just random acts of being a jerk.

Fast forward a few years. I'm bigger. Much bigger. I'm tall, I'm no longer rail-thin, I've lost my glasses because of LASIK, and I'm happy. I've almost entirely forgotten about this guy until I see him across the dining room at a restaurant.

His appetizers have just arrived, and my bill has just arrived. I pay up, leave a generous tip, and wander over to this guy. Stopping next to him at his table, I say "Hi." He looks at me, and I can see recognition flash across his eyes. He's eating wings. I reach down, take one, and calmly eat it. I toss the bone back onto his plate. "Nice seeing you again." Then I leave.

The look on his face at this tiny, random act of revenge, was pretty amazing.

I moved to a new school in 7th grade and was doing fine -- making friends, good grades. Then somehow ran afoul of this bigger kid (he'd been held back a few times). Typical bully -- pushed little kids into lockers, loved to torment girls and ran with a pack of acolytes who adored and aped him.

In Texas at the time, if a kid didn't like you, he "called you out" (challenged you to a fight after school). Well, "Zed" calls me out one day, because I was from New York. Being clueless, I said, "Sure, okay."

A few days later, in front of his acolytes and a small group of my friends, he proceeds to beat the snot out of me. It was 7th grade, so the damage wasn't excessive -- mostly to my pride. Spent the rest of middle school known as one of the guys "Zed beat the snot out of."

Fast forward about seven years, home from college and going to the grocery store for mom. Who should I see bagging my goodies but Zed. Taking a look at him, I see a horrible scar running from the top of his head down around the back of his skull and neck and under his shirt.

His face lights up when he sees me, and he says, in slightly slurred speech, "Hey! Didn't we go to school together? We're friends from school, right?" He walks with me out to the parking lot, and as we walk I learn that he had been hit by a car in high school while biking home one day. The accident required a half-dozen surgeries and had left Zed mentally impaired and a completely different person.

He put my stuff in the car, shook my hand for a good 30 seconds and kept asking me to "come back and see me sometime!"

I had hated a few people in my life to that point, and no one more than him. But I almost cried driving home, I felt so bad for him and disgusted with myself for my previous hatred.

Background: I was bullied a lot in middle school, and (for unrelated reasons) ended up going to a different high school from most of my classmates, and obviously didn't keep in touch.

I was back home from college for Christmas a year or two ago and was at the mall with my little sister and my fiance. I recognized a girl from my middle school across the food court, but we had never been friends, so I simply made a mental note that she was there and went back to eating.

A few moments later my fiance and sister both got up to use the restroom and I was by myself. The girl gets up, comes over, makes nice for half a second ("Oh hi, how are you, haven't seen you in forever, blah blah,") and then immediately transitions into how I look pathetic and desperate sitting by myself, and how it's no wonder the people I was with left.

I am completely taken aback and it takes me a moment to form words. I hadn't seen this girl in 6 or 7 years and hadn't said more than 5 words to her.

I picked up my purse, stood up from my table and said, "We're grown-ups now," in the most condescending tone I could manage through my surprise. I wanted to say something about how she needed to stop acting like a child, or how there were no teachers around to stop me from leaving, but at that moment I had too many thoughts and couldn't express them all at once eloquently, so I just left. I think, or at least hope, she got the message.

This girl in high school tried to get me kicked out for bullying her, even though I'd actually actively been staying out of her way as I knew she didn't like me.

Fast forward a few months and I get an acceptance letter from my first choice university in my pocket, which this girl had spent the last year telling me I was too stupid to get into. She missed both her first and second choices and sat crying on the phone trying to find a university to take her.

Four years later I have my degree and I moved back to a town near where my family lives to work as a manager in a busy and successful restaurant. She comes in with a work party and sneers when she sees me waiting tables... Her face when they asked me for the manager to complain about me (for no reason I might add) was priceless. "That would be me, how can I help?"

Turns out she works as a coffee slave in a cafe in the local (crappy) shopping center, and last time I walked past I saw she'd stolen some of my business ideas and passed them off under her name. She still comes to the restaurant occasionally but I let my second in command deal with her table as I can't promise to be impartial, I even make sure I go nowhere near their food or drinks so there's no room for her to complain.

It's a small victory sure, but it makes me feel a bit vindicated!

I grew up in Northern California, and every summer a bunch of people take to the water and go tubing down the Sacramento River. A popular stopping place mid-end of the route is "Can Beach"...it was here that I ran into this guy that was terrible in high school as I was docking my tube.

Me: "Heyyyyy."

Him (obviously uncomfortable): "Heyyyy, how's it going?"

Me (through gritted teeth): "Awesome"

Him: (pause): "You freaking hate me, don't you?"

Me (surprised at his astute observation): "Yeah... I really do."

Him: "What would make you feel better and us to be cool?"

Me: "Um...if you let me shoot you in the face with this Super Soaker."

Him: "Ok."

Me: "Really?"

Him: "And then we'll be cool?"

Me: "Yeah, we'll totally be cool"

...and then he let me. He let me shoot him in the face with a Super Soaker in a constant stream until it ran out of water. It felt amazing. He knew he deserved it. He took his punishment, then we both laughed and hugged. Worth it.

I was playing poker in Atlantic City about 7 years ago and one of the guys that bullied me, Chad, sat at my table. There's no way he recognized me. I was actually playing on a no-limit hold'em table while waiting for a seat to open in a 2-way hi-lo game.

Anyway, I stayed at the NLHE table just to take his money. I played probably 95% of the pots he was in. He had been drinking and wasn't very good. I got close to $600 off of him in a little over an hour before he decided to quit. I have no idea what he does for a living, but I am 100% sure he is a big loser when he plays cards.

The boy who bullied me horrifically at school for liking dance and being ugly (leading me to have just over $6,000 cosmetic surgery on my face) was in the city I now live in recently. I was with a group of dancers from a show I'm working at, all stunning women, and I've spent the last 6 months getting in shape.

He was with his now pregnant girlfriend from school and looked like he despised every minute with her. I wish I could say that I was classy, or said something smart. Instead, I belly laughed in his face called him a "cretinous little waste of a man" and carried on with my night. I am not a good person. But I am happy.

It's been roughly two years for me. After my first love broke up with me, my self-esteem took a huge hit. I felt insecure, like a terrible person, like I ruined everything good around me, etc. These insecurities manifested themselves in low self-esteem with regards to my body image.

I recently started getting hammered text messages from my ex. After a while, they progressed to him trying to get me to come to visit him. Once I agreed to drive the two hours it takes to go see him, but then he canceled saying he would be embarrassed for his friends to know we had hung out because I was "such a terrible person." I stopped being nice and polite, but he continued to text me. I should also mention, as it's relevant to the story, that my ex's life dream is to be on TV and be famous.

Then two weeks ago I was driving to a music festival up in Michigan when I decided to check my email. I found out I'd been one of 6 girls (out of an original 250 from my region) to move on to the next round of interviews for the casting of a new modeling show. I'd applied and sent in pictures of myself on a whim, I hadn't really expected anything to come of it since I'd only done some amateur modeling in middle school. I was absolutely beside myself with happiness. I felt confidence like I hadn't felt in two years. I felt good.

But it gets better. When I returned home I was shopping at a fancy local boutique when the owner approached me and asked me if I'd had any modeling experience. Then he asked me to come in for a photo shoot for the online catalog they were launching. I went in for the photo shoot and it was amazing. I felt on top of the world. Stuff like this does not happen to me.

I like to think that the world is paying me back tenfold in karma for having to deal with so many self-esteem problems stemming from this one guy and this one break up. Also... who's embarrassed now, jerk?