Prozac and Me

Since my child was born three years ago, I hear a strange inner voice. It sounds like a high-pitched whine, and then I realize that’s not me talking and squealing and making fire engine noises, that’s my kid. Where is my own voice?
Stress and child rearing have created a vacuum in my soul. I plod through the days doing the rote maneuvers I’ve developed to get things done. It’s no fun, and I’ve decided to reclaim whatever is left of my own childlike qualities! (Insert super-hero theme music at this point, let it play like an undercurrent while you read the rest of my story.) I’m going to get back to doing what I like to do, whatever that passion is! (I have to find that too.)
I once considered myself witty and cynical and sarcastic, and you know what happened to that? Prozac. Ahhhh, it’s such an elixir in pill form. Takes the edge off of the stress and the boredom and makes pretty haloes around the faces of people I love, or don’t. Doesn’t really matter who they are. (The haloes are imagined, and only illustrative of the pretty coma-like state that chemistry induces, of course, but it’s such a pretty picture I haven’t tried to adjust the vertical just yet.) I exaggerate, as well. I haven’t lost that ability.
With wit and comedy comes doubt. Cynics are the best comics. They see the sharp edge of every contour and use it to their advantage. Things may still be ugly, but now they are distorted into such funny shapes that we can laugh at them. Of course, it’s a fine, almost invisible line between humor and cruelty. Turning something negative into a positive is fine, but not at anyone’s expense. That’s where I lost interest.
I’ll bet comics aren’t on Prozac.
But in order to get my own edge back, I would need to lay off the anti-depressants and follow the vortex back down into that swirling soup of stress, anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, and hair loss. Ain’t gonna do it. I shall be dull! and find sweetness in baby poo and runny noses! But alas, the world will miss my great comedic adventures. It’s a huge loss, trust me.
End theme music, if it was still playing in your head. I know mine won’t turn off…