In August, I will have to travel back to my hometown of Fayette, Alabama to visit the 31 other former Hubbertville High School students for our 10 year high school reunion.

That gives me a little over a month and a half to get my life somewhat together before I go back, and give an update on how the past 10 years have been since we graduated from school in a very musty and hot gymnasium.

The past 10 years have had a lot of ups and downs, and it has been a reinforcing fact that you are never done growing as a person.

I am assuming that I will continue to learn things even well into my last days on this Earth.

Looking back over the past 10 years, there has been so many changes, but I have always thought that change is something that we shouldn’t fear.

Change is good.

Change is part of the adventure we take to being a better, and more well-rounded person.

There were 32 of us that graduated, and there are 32 separate stories of how we have changed since then.

Most of them have started families, and are raising children. The only reason I am aware of that is because my mom now teaches most of them in Kindergarten.

There for a little while it was almost weekly that my mom would call and ask me to guess who’s kid she is teaching now.

Part of me was happy for them, and the other part of me was terrified that they had offspring.

Some have moved off and started careers in other states. I was one of those traveling to South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and eventually back to Alabama.

Our class president created a Facebook page allowing us to comment if we would attend or not, and one guy said that his six pack was gone, he was losing his hair and he wishes we could all go back to 2008.

All I had to reply to that was “no, thank you.”

I was an awkward, chubby, band and choir kid who worked every night at the local Jack’s in order to have gas money, and I have no desire to relive those days.

Some of that has changed … I am no longer in band or choir.

But I encourage all of you to embrace the changes in your life not with fear, but with excitement of what new and exciting things can happen to you if you let it.

It makes for a memorable time if you take chances that changes bring instead of playing it routinely safe.

Will Whaley is the editor of the Selma Times Journal. He can be reached at will.whaley@selmatimesjournal.com.