Mirror, mirror on the wall

I check my luck in the mirror

The Boss (AKA Bruce Springsteen)

Don't we all.  In the end. Check our luck in the mirror.  

Nothing medical in this post. Just some existential optimism. 

What I see starting back at me from the looking glass, despite some raccoon darkness around my eyes,  doesn't look like leukemia, doesn't hint of graft rejection, or drug toxicity or the immune battles of graft versus host. No pallor here. No jaundice. Not plethoric. The eyes, if I say so myself, look bright and engaged and focused. This is a fight I am winning and will win.

JP Sartre was dead on target when he taught us "L'enfer, C'est les autres" For the non francophiles, "Hell is other people" L'etre and neant'. Being and nothingness. This is the secular doppelganger of Moses admonition to choose life. Define yourself. Don't let others' expectations or statistical predictions determine your fate. Look deeply in the face of the other. Be there for them. That is what we are here for, but you must not be defined by the other. 

It's amazing how my adolescent angst still informs my present mid life passages.