It had been 32 years since I had walked the halls of Tullahoma High School. It was a short walk from my house, last Thursday night, to see my younger boy’s art, a blue crayon panting that was featured in the Tullahoma City School’s Fine Arts Night.

Going back is hard sometimes. Time has passed, and much has changed but there are still some places at my old school that lurk like ghosts haunting the modern upgrades to a school that dates back to at least the ‘60s.

There’s the steps by the gym where we would wait out the end of fourth period lunch to go back to Coach Albaugh’s Physical Science class, next to Mr. Perry’s Health class and Coach Dyer’s Auxiliary gym.

There’s the doors to the cafeteria, still sitting there the same as that day I was crushed by my crush. The grand foyer that seemed 20 feet high when I walked in as a freshman, petrified because I’d skipped orientation and hadn’t a clue what to do.

And the doors that lead out to the parking lot and freedom in the form of my crappy ‘81 Mustang that everyone I know wrecked but me.

I don’t remember walking out those doors on the last day of school in 1994. But I do recall that the Mustang had long since died and was by then replaced by an older, more crappy El Camino.

Those doors now have reflective anti-shooter film on them, and in them I see a reflection of a man that didn’t exist 32 years ago.

Oddly, I don’t think about regrets and what I would have told that 18-year-old boy about the future, rather I ponder — who was the boy that walked out those doors all those years ago? And who did he become?

As twilight blankets my walk back to the present, I reply: I’m a father, a writer, a painter and a dancer. I’m the creation of what 32 years has conspired to build out of me.