CNN —

When Zach Gilyard, an art director in Brooklyn, got his first tattoo as a senior in high school, he did what most teenagers do and didn’t tell his parents. But not for the reasons you might think — Gilyard’s father and older siblings are all heavily tattooed, and Gilyard, like his mother, thought he would never join them. But on a whim 2006, he got a winged foot on his ankle to represent running, and kept it hidden around his family.

“It was not very me,” he said in a phone call, of getting inked. “I kind of liked that it was a bit of a thrill for me, because it was a time where I couldn’t control the situation. I was doing something permanent.”

Twelve years and several tattoos later, Gilyard abruptly decided to reverse course shortly after beginning a black-ink traditional patc

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