On Monday, I accompanied our sports reporter in an effort to hone in on my sports photography skills as the kick-off for football season creeps closer and closer.

I have covered all types of news in the past four years that I have been in the journalism field.

City councils, crime, politics, business and industry, lifestyle features about cakes (they let us take home the cake as well) and much more, but one thing I have little experience in is sports writing.

It’s just not my thing.

I can watch a football game like the rest of us, but I get distracted being a spectator, and that is the extent of my time with that.

I had nothing to do with the sports section until my job in Jackson County when I was just thrown into a football game, and was told to record all the plays, which was fine, but I was petrified. I felt like a freshman journalist student on my way to the very first story interview all over again.

It was nerve racking, but all I could do was just jump in and see how things went.

That whole jumping in and seeing how things go mentality is something I do with a lot of aspect of life.

At Rotary Monday, the people at my table shared how they ended up in Selma. Selma City School Superintendent Dr. Avis Williams came from Tuscaloosa, Kara Johnson came from Washington state and I came from north Alabama.

We (and others) all had to take different paths to get here, but it is almost fate that we have all converged into one town to try and do good.

Yes, it was terrifying to move to a new spot, and I’ve moved like 15 times in the past three years, but life seems much more adventurous when we are taking chances on new jobs and new places to live.

I have been an editor for about four months now, and I’m still comparing my emotions to a duck where I’m calm above the surface, but kicking and freaking out like crazy below.

I have no idea how things will turn out, and I have no idea what the future holds for anything. But the most satisfying thing to me is that I took a chance to have new experiences.

I encourage all of you just like, Kenzie Horton in Sunday’s Times-Journal, to get out of our comfort zone.
Who knows where you could end up if you do?