Life Moments #10: Is This What Prozac Feels Like?

IS THIS WHAT PROZAC FEELS LIKE? In years past, I’d veer off the rails, white hot, at the slightest insult, the familiar and comforting (key word) anger surging through stomach, up spine, out crown in a simultaneous spectacle of self-destruction and rebirth. And, oh, the collateral damage, the spit sharp shards of well-tempered rage. Viewed from above and behind, I often felt more witness than participant. 
 
 That was then. Today, I don’t know what it would take to trigger me like that. At first, when I was suddenly and finally handed the keys to the trigger guard (another story), I was skeptical of their tumbled fit. But sure enough, time and again, faced with minor and major affronts, I found myself able to cool the surge with faint effort. When I realized and accepted the breakthrough, after so many years of struggling questioning deep diving and underwater wrestling with the poison-toothed alligators of my past, I finally gave myself credit for “having done the work” and succeeded. Huzzah, a breakthrough at last. 
 
But now I’m wondering if those are master keys that block access not to a single path, but the entire network. In years past, I’d fall madly in love with the slightest smile, the wondrous surge of sharing flinging open heart, shaping lips into grin, escaping through eyes in blue sparks of joy and trust. And, yes, the beauty of it, the mutual language of love lessons learned.

That was then. Today, I can still read the stars and navigate the waters as I’ve done my entire life. In fact, I’m guided unerringly to fellow travelers with more grace and surety than ever. Yet, after the initial excitement of discovery, instead of seeking common ground, I find myself pulling oars and letting the current of ennui tug me past and beyond. It’s a sad parting for me, to be sure, but with each casting off I feel more resigned to a life that trades less warm days for nights with fewer shadows.

I did not lead with a rhetorical question. Is this what Prozac feels like? Is it a shovel struck through the heart and into a grounding bedrock of igneous indifference? I’d think that steel tip must spark when it strikes. I’d like to believe that it does and that a small breath, well-placed, can relight the pilot.