My Therapist Found My Fame Journal (Both Versions)
"So," my therapist says, holding up not one but TWO notebooks, "I found these under the couch cushion when you were in the bathroom."
I know immediately what they are. The journals from my three days of internet fame. When my essay about crying in a Wendy's parking lot went viral.
"You kept two simultaneous journals?"
"One for when I was excited. One for when I was deflated."
"During the same three days?"
"Sometimes during the same hour."
She opens the first one. The excited one. Written in what appears to be gold sharpie.
"'This is everything I dreamed it would be!' Three exclamation points."
"It was a big moment."
"'Every notification is a dopamine hit... every recognition feels earned...'"
"That's just brain chemistry."
"You drew hearts around 'dopamine hit.'"
"I was excited."
She flips a page. "'I can't sleep because I'm reading every comment... response... mention...'"
"That's normal for viral content creators."
"You wrote 'viral content creator' in your journal?"
"It was technically accurate for three days."
She drops the excited journal and it falls open to a page covered in hearts. The deflated one is still in her lap, all cramped tiny writing like I was conserving pencil lead.
"'Oh. So this is it?'"
"That was hour two."
"Of day one?"
"The crash comes fast."
"'I thought I'd feel different.'"
"I thought fame would fix things."
"What things?"
"You know... things. Internal things."
"You thought going viral would fix your internal things?"
"When you say it like that it sounds stupid."
She reads more: "'The achievements don't fill holes.'"
"That's actually quite insightful."
"I was having a moment."
She grabs the excited journal again, fumbling between both: "'Someone in Mongolia and Tasmania saw my work!'"
"That is exciting."
"Do you know how far apart those places are? My sadness was internationally recognized!"
"Your essay was about crying in a Wendy's parking lot."
"It was about the human condition!"
"The title was 'I Ugly-Cried Into a Baconator.'"
"That's called SEO optimization."
She finds a particularly rough page in the deflated journal: "'They'll figure out I'm just another ordinary person.'"
"I mean..."
"You ARE just another ordinary person."
"But for three days I wasn't!"
"Yes, you were."
"Mongolia, Janet! MONGOLIA!"
She holds up both journals. "Why did you write 'You are my first late night appearance' in both books?"
"Oh. That."
"Addressed to who?"
"The internet."
"You wrote a love letter to the internet?"
"It's metaphorical!"
"Explain the metaphor."
"Like... your first late night appearance is when you've made it. As a comedian. It's your arrival moment."
"You're not a comedian."
"I was funny for three days!"
"You cried into fast food."
"COMEDICALLY!"
She's comparing entries from the same night now. Wait, no—same HOUR.
"These are five minutes apart. You wrote 'I'm a genius' and then—what does this say? The pencil's so faint—"
"I'm a fraud."
"FIVE MINUTES."
"I was having a journey!"
"You were having a breakdown. And then—" she squints at the excited journal, "you just wrote CHECK THE NUMBERS CHECK THE NUMBERS in all caps?"
"The metrics were fluctuating!"
"'None of this matters but also it's everything' — you wrote this seventeen times."
"It's a paradox!"
"It's exhausting."
She keeps reading: "'Success feels separate from me... like it happened to someone else...'"
"That's dissociation."
"That's artistic temperament!"
"You compared yourself to Thoreau."
"Actually, someone in the comments called me 'the Thoreau of Beautiful Garbage.'"
"And you wrote it down?"
"In BOTH journals!"
She finds the worst part: "'37 million people now know I cried with my face pressed against my walking shoes.'"
"That wasn't even in the essay."
"I overshared in the comments."
"Why?"
"They asked for more details! They were invested in my journey!"
"Your journey to Wendy's?"
"My journey through PAIN!"
The deflated journal falls open to a new page: "'I spent years trying to get everyone's attention... only to discover later in life that I'm an introvert.'"
"That's self-knowledge!"
"That's self-sabotage. You sought fame and then hid from it."
"I responded to EVERY comment for three hours!"
"Then you deactivated your account."
"I needed space to process my achievement!"
"You lasted three days."
"THOREAU ONLY LASTED TWO YEARS AT WALDEN!"
"That's... not the same thing."
"It's proportional!"
She closes both journals. Long pause.
"You wrote 'we seek it for transformation but receive it as amplification.'"
"That's actually good, right?"
"It is. Did you learn anything from this?"
"Absolutely."
"What?"
"Next time I go viral, I'm keeping THREE journals."
"That's not—"
"Excited, deflated, AND confused."
"Please don't go viral again."
"Oh, I'm already drafting my next essay."
"About what?"
"This conversation."
"Please don't."
"'My Therapist Found My Fame Journals (Both Versions)' — it's SEO gold!"
"I'm doubling my rate."
"Wait until you see what I wrote about my boots."
"Your what?"
"Nothing. Different journals. Under different cushions."
She's rubbing her temples now. "You know what fame really is?"
"What?"
"You're not a different person... you're the same person..."
"Just louder?"
"Just with more notebooks."
She's right. But I'm keeping the journals. Both versions. All seventeen entries about nothing mattering but also being everything. Because someday, someone in Mongolia might want to know what it was like — those three glorious days when my sadness had international reach and I couldn't decide if I was a genius or a fraud.
I was both. Or neither. Or—honestly, I can't remember anymore. I just remember Mongolia kept coming up in the comments and I thought that meant something and now my therapist knows about the boots AND the fame journals and next week she's probably going to find my notebook about that time I thought my neighbor's cat was judging me.
Mongolia, though. Someone in Mongolia read my thing about crying into fast food.
That happened.
I have proof. It's in both journals.