I Was Blind but Now I See

My eyes were barely functioning, Friday.

This happens sometimes.

I usually blame it on the age of my contacts. I tend to wear them until they tear. But this time, when I started my day feeling a bit blind, I knew I couldn't blame the contacts. They're brand new.

I mentioned my predicament to Mom. She seemed unconcerned --thought maybe it was cyclic or having to do with differences in water retention or something that would fix itself. So I went merrily on my sightless way.

Friday night we had a family dinner to bid farewell to my grandparents who were making their semi-annual migration over the weekend. I had been preparing a piano arrangement of my grandpa's favorite song for the occasion, but I had yet to memorize it (I really wasn't planning to ever memorize it). When I sat down to practice Friday morning, I realized my lack of sight would be detrimental to the performance because I needed to read the notes. I could not tell the lines from the spaces on the sheet music. We enjoyed dinner with my grandparents without any entertainment from the lady. Oh well. I'll see them again in 6 months.

Saturday was a new day. I was hoping it would also be a new day for my eyes, but the world was still mysteriously blurry. We visited the Science Center and Wegmans, then attended the evening session of Stake Conference. I drove my boys and June Howard home afterward so that Patrick could stay for more. All of this I did feeling oh so handicapped and headached and frustrated. But I tried not to let on. At home, the boys made it to bed long past their bedtime (feeling handicapped makes me move slow too). As soon as they were tucked in, I rushed to the bathroom determined to experiment with my eyes until I found a solution. And just as I reached in to take the right contact out, an idea exploded like a firework in my head: This is the left one.

No, I thought, this is the right one.

Just try it, the response exploded just like the first.

So I carefully made the switch, still feeling doubtful. I'm not that careless, I reasoned. Who switches their contacts? The result said it all. It turns out I am that careless and I did switch my contacts. It probably wasn't the first time either. I've trashed many many contacts thinking they weren't working because they were too old. Turns out, they probably had ended up in the wrong eyes. Now I know.