Full Circle

I remember when I first read meters by myself. It was strait after training and I was unsure of just about everything (dogs, using binoculars to read from afar, dogs, trooping through peoples backyards, and oh yeah…dogs). I remember going into the first yard that said “Beware of Dog” with a code in the handheld that read 14 36 34…which means ‘rear, more than one dog, dog vicious’. I was scared. I snuck in the yard as quietly as I could, peaked around the corner and saw the meter, no dogs. I read the meter as fast as I could and “beeeeeep!”, the next house had notes in it which alarm you with a pretty loud beeping noise. Just then I see two dog heads pop around the corner to discover me, and intruder in their yard. I bolt, slip on ice, get up as fast as I can and while terror is ever so prevalent in my being I let out a battle cry as I get back up and swing my bite stick(a stick with a tennis ball on the end of it). I sounded like an elephant. I had no clue what to do and my instincts took over. It worked though, and I didn’t die.

I really didn’t know what I was getting into. Everything was foreign. But it was my first route on my own and all these feelings are expected. I remember this first route like it was yesterday even though it was more like a year and a half ago. It was the only route I read by myself in Reno before I reported to Carson.

Today was my last day reading meters, and I have been reading them back in Reno for the past couple of weeks. As I’m driving out to my very last route of my meter reading career I realize that it’s in the same area as that first route I read. Then when I got to the first street I realized that it was the very route I started with! Out of all the days I decided to be my last, out of all the routes, out of all the cycles I’m ending on the same one I started with. Some would call it ironic, weird, closure, or just lucky. I call it confirmation. It felt like God was telling me that I was on the right path, that this was a completed circle in my life. And now it’s time to move on to another circle. And by the way, I shaved about 3 hours off of the route the second time around=crushed it.