I still wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, terrified that my go-bag and kit aren't setup properly. It took me about fifteen years of trial and error to nail down a systemized process for quickly alleviating this unfounded fear but the effort was worth it.

Take a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Throw the blanket off, get out of bed, go into the den, open the closet, and pull out the check list. I don't need to turn on the light and fully wake up, it only takes me ten minutes to run my hands across the various textures of the gear and convince my mind that its all there, ready to go. The cold, smooth leather of the knife in its sheath. The beads and rough cords tying my clothing up in secure, space saving rolls. The ten minute check is better than trying, and failing to ignore a deep dread that something is off, and laying there restlessly, not falling back asleep. Nope, just get up and do the check.

I'm glad my type of OCD is the good type. I don't need to count stairs or wash my hands maniacally. Sorry to anyone who has that. No offense. However, I kinda wonder if those people could manage their OCD too, use it as a tool like me, if they also clearly understood it's origin.

Mine started on April 8th 1996.

I was 13. On this day, I went with my mom to go see my grandma. It was the usual type of meeting. My mom circled around it, almost but never confessing her infidelities. My grandma circled around it, giving my mom unspoken permission to continue the family tradition, and keep sleeping with guys while the husband was out at work. "There's only so much loneliness a wife can take." Me in the other room, drinking cup after cup of chocolate milk, not trying to over-hear, but hell, kids hear and see everything so if you're a parent, don't think you're getting away with anything.

On the way home from grandma's house, we stopped at my mom's friend's house. My mom told me I could stay in the car and listen to whatever radio station I wanted to listen to. Even the heavy metal stuff that she didn't approve of. She told me she wouldn't be long so she'd leave the car running. She told me we would stop at the mall on the way home and she would buy me an ice cream.

I wonder if she figured this hush hush bribe routine out on her own. Or if my grandma taught her these moves when my mom was a little kid. Like, "hey, kid, don't ask who I'm meeting. Don't ask what I'm doing in there. Don't ask why I'm only going in for fifteen minutes. And don't talk about this when we get home. And you keep up your end of the bargain, and you get some treaties."

I listened to maybe three or four songs and my mom came back to the car. She looked a little disheveled, hair out place and blouse untucked. We drove to the mall. She kept up her end of the bargain and bought me an ice cream. She also used the credit card my dad gave her and she bought me a pair of the Kobe Bryant shoes.

Those shoes just came out and they were his first signature shoe. Adidas. White. Light. Responsive. Probably his best shoe. Too bad he didn't stay with that brand.

My mom also caved to my request to buy some new high end basketball shorts and a Chris Webber jersey. Hell, she was in a daze and she didn't think twice when she was swiping the card and getting me the stuff so I just kept piling more on the register.

Man, I was a greedy little manipulative fuck. Well. Whatever. Sorry, but not sorry.

When we got home, I suited up in my new gear and went out to the backyard to play some hoops. It's totally true, when you feel like you look good, basketball is more fun. That's why the sport is always on the vanguard of fashion.

The only problem. My hoop and basketball court was next to the barn and the barn was my dad's territory.

My court was awesome. My dad built it so he could say he built it for me. The hoop was one of the first hoops that you could higher and lower, six inch increments going from 10 feet down to 7 feet. I was 13 at the time so I put the hoop down to 9 feet. The height that brought out my best dunks. Not too easy, but I could get 360s and throw myself alley-oops off the glass.

In my white, shiny, new Kobe sneakers and the fresh polyester smelling Chris Webber jersey, I was feeling like a care bear flying through the air, above all the pain of a life that was too good to complain about. Too good, no way I was going to bring to light the truths that would tear it all down. Destroy our perfect family and my awesome material shit.

Then the big barn door opened. I didn't even know my dad was in there with my sister. They were doing my dad's favorite thing in the whole world, cleaning and organizing his tools. My sister was always invited to do this with my dad. The only time I got to touch my dad's tools was when he wasn't around. My sister was more my dad's son than me. On this day, I did something so stupid. When the barn door opened, I was supposed to follpw protocol, avoid eye contact with my dad, take my ball, leave his presence, and go inside the house.

I was feeling too good, though. My dad standing there with his hands on his hips. My sister talking about how she helped dad all day while I went shopping with mom. I felt too saucey. I wanted to show my dad something. The ultimate, I'm almost a man thing, I put the hoop up to 10 feet. And so fucking stupid, I said, "dad, I can touch the rim now." My dad, a disappointed statue, watched me take a run at the hoop, launch into the air, damn near pop my shoulder out of socket to fully extend, and barely brush the tip of my finger on the bottom of the rim. I was a late bloomer, about five foot two at the time, so I must've got some air. Thank you Adidas Kobe's!

My dad, for a change gave me a verbal acknowledgement and said, "Don't think you got it."

I was so excited that he gave me a few words of encouragement so I returned, "No! No! I just barely got it! Maybe, I'll dunk someday, like you used to." Something like that, my words aren't burned into my memory as clearly as my dad's.

Then, in another new development, my dad asked me to go out behind the barn to pull the tractor in for the night.

I hadn't ever driven the tractor. Both of my sisters learned how to drive the tractor while sitting on my dad's lap, they were slowly introduced to turning the wheel, then how to give it gas, then how to handle the tractor's tricky clutch and brakes. They had summers of training under their belt before they started driving it on their own. My dad always said that I was too high strung, too hyper active to sit still on his lap and learn. And since I never learned how to drive a tractor, that made me a sissy. A runt. Those were my nicknames my dad used when my uncles came over. Our family's men all learned how to drive a tractor before they were seven years old because it's in our man blood. If I can't drive a tractor, then I don't have our man blood. My dad must be right, he doesn't have a son, just two daughters and a sissy.

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The task was there. The mission was in front of me. I just touched the rim. My dad was impressed. He was giving me a shot to get a foot into the circle of trust. Maybe I drive this tractor into the barn and next he's talking to me about girls or teaching me how to shave.

That tractor. One of those antique style John Deere tank like machines. Take care of it and it'd run forever. Huge back wheels, almost as tall as I was when I was 13. The front wheels, closely set together so you could turn on a short radius.

I climbed up on the tractor. My dad watched from the barn. My sister, she couldn't help herself, she was saying things about how I couldn't do it. Asking my dad what would happen if I crashed it.

I turned the key and pumped the hand throttle to get the engine turning over real good. I looked over my shoulder. Simple task. Back the tractor up into the barn.

The gear shift rod coming up to my crotch. Okay, how the fuck do I do this. I think this is right. The engine so loud. If my dad was yelling instructions, he would have said something about putting my foot on the clutch and then wobbling working the gear shift into the R position.

I stomped my foot on the clutch. I had to stand up to push down the brakes with the other foot. I only weighed maybe 100 pounds. I was so skinny back then. And my legs could sprint for marathons or spring me up in the air, but there wasn't any power in those twigs.

I worked the tractor into gear. And I had my tongue pushing into my cheek. And my head looking back over my shoulder. I could see the open barn door and my sister and my dad standing there with a look on their faces like, what are you waiting for, back 'er in.

Still standing, I wiggled my foot off the brakes and clutch. The tractor was not in reverse. It jumped into gear and we were going forward. Fast. Toward the fifteen foot deep county ditch.

The front tire went over the edge. The tractor got sucked down by gravity. I jumped off just in time. Lucky I still had on my Kobe's and that sweat gear because looking good helped me jump far enough away from the tractor to not die.

I landed in the ditch. Black beautiful wet ditch mud covered me and my new clothes.

I climbed up the ditch bank. The adrenaline helped me ignore the thorns and thistles I grabbed onto to get up the cliff.

My head peaked over the side. My dad was there, face redder than a Crayola marker. Maybe it was anger. Maybe it was Rosacea from the alcohol. My sister was by his side. She was trying not to laugh.

I walked past him. No words were spoken. I went into the house and down to the basement. There was a knot in my stomach. All the adrenaline, that high didn't last, because the weight of shame was so heavy.

I took off my clothes and sat my naked butt on the gray, cold, cement floor. I started to frantically clean my new shoes. First with spit and my finger. Then I dug around in the storage closet and found a shoe cleaning kit. Before long, all the ditch mud was off my shoes and they looked brand new again. This felt good.

Next, with ninja stealth, I went up the stairs and into the back bathroom. Still naked and my body was still covered in mud. I grabbed a bar of soap, and from under the sink, I got a two gallon tub. Filled the tub with hot water. And, still in ninja mode, I went back downstairs.

I sat back down on the cement floor. In the same place as before, so it wasn't as cold anymore. I went to work on my new clothes, trying to get the dirt off before permanent stains set in.

Success. The dirt came melting off. I don't know why, maybe fate, but seeing the dirty become clean was such an awesome relief in that moment. This was the beginning for me, I love cleaning my shit. Sometimes, I love a mission because I fantasize about all the cleaning I'll get to do when it's over. Anyways.

My ninja mode was spoiled when my sister came down stairs and told me I needed to come back out to the barn. My uncle was over at the house. He came with his crane to pull the tractor out of the ditch. She asked me why I was naked. I didn't have an answer.

I put on some old but clean clothes over my still mud covered boy body and I went back outside.

Getting the tractor out of the ditch was simple work for my uncle and his crane. And our tractor was an indestructible John Deere, so there wasn't any noticeable damage. No harm done.

No one asked me if I was okay. Hahaha. Man, oh man. Different times.

After the tractor was out, my uncle, who was my dad's older brother, he told my dad that this shit can't happen again. Gotta teach the boy how to drive that tractor. Get right back on it so I don't develop a permanent fear of it.

My dad grumbling insults and talking about it being a waste of time. I climbed back up on the tractor, still covered in ditch mud. My dad stood next to me. He barked orders to me while his sand paper hands moved my limbs around the controls and pedals like I was his puppet. We went through a dry run for changing gears. He said, "Now you do it. No my helping. Repeat it. Not that hard. Do like we just did."

Every synaptic firing was building this process, this system into a readily accessible program into my brain. Hand here. Foot there. Turn head. Look here. Look there. The smell of the tractor's diesel engine. The taste of the oil and grease that somehow got into your mouth when you work farm equipment. The feel of the industrial revolution, rough, caste iron steel resisting your pulls on the wheel that wasn't aided by power steering.

My dad gave me some space and went back to standing a few feet away, next to his older brother. His older brother saying, "I don't know if he's got it yet. Maybe, you gotta give him another teaching before we have 'em drive it again." Me up on the tractor. I turn the key. I pump the gas to get the engine turning good. I step on the brake and the clutch. I put it into gear. I slowly release my feet from the pedals. It catches and I'm going forward, without a ditch right there for me to crash into. My heart is pounding like a jack hammer. I drive a lap around the yard. All by myself. Less than two hours after I crashed. I stop when I make it back in front of my dad and my uncle. I turn off the tractor and jump off.

My dad barks at me, "You ain't done! Get your ass back up on there and back 'er into the barn."

I start crying. I beg my dad, "Please, I can't. I can't do it. I'm not ready."

My uncle says, "..

Its funny, I can't write some parts in past tense because when I go into this memory, its not a memory, its happening again. LOL.

My uncle says, "Maybe, he's had enough for the day. I'll back 'er in there for you tonight."

My dad broke family protocol and told his older brother, "No. He's gotta learn. No walking away. No sissy girl quitting."

My dad turned to me and barked, "Quit your goddamn crying and back that tractor into the barn!"

I got back onto the tractor. My brain went into, "Run this algorithm. Process. System. Computer. Don't fail. Don't die." Mode.

My little boy body, breathing so hard, so deep. Even though my body wasn't using oxygen. It was running on pure cortisol and acid. Nothing aerobic going on.

My eyes pouring tears. My mind praying my dad would see this and have mercy and not make me try to back this mother fucker up.

No such luck.

When I got the tractor through the door and into its normal parking space, I stood up on the brake and the clutch, stopped it, turned it off, and got off it fast as lightning.

No nods of approval. No positivity. Just, blank acceptance that I finally was not such a big problem anymore. Maybe relief that he could go back to ignoring me.

My dad and uncle stayed outside chatting and I went inside and back down stairs.

I skipped dinner and spent the evening down in the basement, cleaning my new gear and reviewing the tractor driving procedures over and over in my head. Obsessively visualizing the process. Once everyone was asleep, I snuck out to the barn and got up on the tractor and did dry runs of the process. Over and over, until I decided to do a few dry runs with my eyes closed.

Fast forward, years, my adult self still using those boy body lessons. On a deployment, after we come back from a raid, when the other guys are decompressing with some video games, I'm in the back room, cleaning my rifle, boots, gear, and obsessively reviewing the meta data from the experience. Nuts to butts. In the stack. Waiting to blow the door and throw the flash bang into the house.

And now, when I wake up in a cold sweat at night, and have to audit my gear, the nightmare that wakes me up? I swear to you. Its those tractor wheels going over the ditch bank and me jumping off into the mud.

It's funny how that day, that experience is what made them notice me while I was still just a soldier. What made them decide that I had what it took to go through more training and become one of their tools in the clandestine game.