The Eye Has It — February 12, 2025 – John Agliata

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Ouch👁️
What If?🎶
Diabeetus🍩

THE DAILY UPDATE

After being called four-eyes one too many times since being forced to don classes in third grade, I came home on the school bus from another typically horrible day in sixth-grade and told my parents I wasn’t going back to school unless I got contact lenses. This was a brazen proclamation not uttered from a position of strength, but for those in the know, sixth grade was a particularly awful year for me, and so I think my birth parents had a bit of sympathy. Soon, I ditched glasses for contacts.

More than 14,000 days have passed between sixth grade and today, which means I have touched my eyeballs in contact-related activities somewhere around 28,000 times. Last night was no different from any other night. So common is this contact-lens thing in my life that I don’t even really think when I do it. They go in. They come out. I move on.

Except last night, within about 10 seconds of taking my contacts out, my left eye started to hurt. So I put some drops in it. Drops work. Or, more to the point, drops have worked in the past. They didn’t work last night.

For the rest of the night, I battled the “Goddamnit! Something is in my eye!” feeling that ranks pretty high up there on The List of Human Annoyances. Was it an eyelash? That was the most likely culprit. I am “blessed” with incredibly long eyelashes, the kind that has made random women comment, “Wow. I love your eyelashes” and that my seventh-grade heartthrob Carlie said, “And on top of that, your eyelashes are stuck together!” while breaking up with me.

But it wasn’t an eyelash. Not one I or Wifey Poo could see, anyway. In fact, neither of us could see anything foreign or domestic in my eyeball area besides eyeball stuff. Yet my eye area became increasingly irritated and increasingly red. This was irritating in and of itself because, of all the things I have on my body, my eyes are probably my favorite feature. They are naturally green, which is rare, but they change to blue depending on what I’m wearing, which makes me think I’m either part superhero or part lizard. Or a superhero lizard. Whatever. It’s cool.

Getting no relief from the pain, around 9 p.m. I finally said, “Ya know what? Fuckit. I’m going to bed.” More eyedrops and a warm rag later, I laid in the dark, alone with my thoughts, a podcast, and an irritated eyeball. Eventually, I fell asleep.

This morning, I woke up with an eye that can best be described as “abnormally crusty.” Not a pretty picture, I know. I carefully wiped said crust away, and despite being a little puffy around the edges, my eye no longer hurts.

The human body doesn’t get enough credit for its remarkable capabilities in healing itself. We forget the miracle that is wound healing. Sometimes, we get a little reminder — a scar — and those marks tell great stories. The one in the middle of my forehead tells the story of me passing out while powerwashing the deck and falling headfirst into the side of the house. The most recent one, under my chin, shares the tale of my neck fusion surgery. My body is increasingly riddled with scars. Neck, lip, chest, ankle.

This little eye incident left no scar, but it’s a good reminder that sometimes the best thing to do is just call it a day and let the body do its thing.

Something I’m grateful for today: Knowing I’ll be able to watch the snow fall out of my home-office window soon. Close the door, put on some music, watch snow, work … ahhh.

Something I’ve (ghost)written: Learning from Obstacles: Three lessons from a digital-first diabetes insurance product in Mexico

Song of the Day: What If I Never Get Over You, by Lady A

Meaningful lyric from the S.O.T.D.:

What if I’m tryin’, but then I close my eyes
And then I’m right back, lost in that last goodbye?
And what if time doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do?
What if I never get over you?

Something good from today/yesterday: Coming home from work to an empty house, changing my clothes, and burying myself under the covers for a half-hour nap and retreat from the world.

Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: Tomorrow’s last regular-season basketball game for me as a coach.

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The Eye Has It — February 12, 2025

THE DAILY UPDATE

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