Diary Of A Wimpy Collegian

There I was, rooting around my basement in search of additional fireworks for him to scoff at our city's statutes against such things, when I happened upon a journal. It was the notebook in which I scribbled my innermost thoughts back in my college days. In my memory, there were several such notebooks, spiral bound, overflowing with observations and witty remarks on the human condition. I must have picked up the wrong notebook.
I was in my early twenties, and I was compelled by two main motivations: appearing clever, and seemingly endless rants about my inability to find romance. To be more precise, the romance part was more about searching for a mate. Perhaps dating would have been a good starting point, but I seemed to be consumed with the need to find a life partner. I wasn't looking to shop. I was ready to buy. And I was such a whiner about it. "Why can't I find love?" I opined. It had not occurred to me, at that time, that simply looking was only part of the answer. Appearing ready for such a lofty enterprise was the part that eluded me. Decades later, I looked on my tightly packed scrawl and winced. Who would want to date this guy? What a train wreck.
To my credit, I seemed to be digging myself out of a hole. For several years leading up to the composition I held in my hands, I had immersed myself in all the drama that teen romance would allow. I was playing big stakes back then, and the fact that I wasn't already married and settled down by my junior year in college seemed to be my chief disappointment in life. I filled page after page with emotional ennui, but I seemed to be aware that dragging myself off the pyre of my own despair was my best hope. I expected to turn the page and find these words: "Lighten Up!"
They never came, and as I continued to flip through the book, I became aware that I was being sucked back down that well, twenty-some years later. I closed the notebook and shoved it back in the drawer, beneath the bag of pop bottle rockets that I kept concealed for just such an emergency. My wife and son were waiting for me. Sometimes you get exactly what you want. It just takes a while.