Bob Mueller

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I Thought It Would Be Easier This Time

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Reading Time: about 4 minutes

I thought the whole empty nest thing would be easier this time.

I Thought The Empty Nest Thing Would Be Easier This Time - Writer | Unfocused

Empty Nest by Flickr user interestedbystandr; used with permission CC BY 2.0

I thought because this was the third time I watched my kids move out, it wouldn’t hurt as much.

This weekend, two more kids moved out.

I feel old again. Or older.

I was wrong about it being easier.

I know I’m not the first parent to have kids move out. I won’t be the last, either. I know that.

Wikipedia says empty nest syndrome isn’t a clinical condition.

It still hurts.

I have the same doubts and fears as I had two years ago when the two oldest kids left the house within a week of each other. Adam’s departure was confused and chaotic. We thought we’d have one more day, but in typical Army fashion, plans changed at the last minute. The next weekend, Erica left, moving in with her best friend.

The day after Adam left, I wrote this:

Was I a good enough parent? Did I teach you everything you needed to know? I couldn’t have. Does any father ever really?

Did I at least teach you enough of the right things?

I wasn’t ready for these feelings.

I wasn’t ready for this pain, for this ache. For this hole in my center.

What’s at the center of that hole? Is it fear? Am I afraid of what could happen to you? Am I afraid that I didn’t prepare you well enough for this path that you’ve chosen? Am I afraid of showing my emotions to my family, for fear of seeming even weaker than I really am?

I think the hole isn’t as deep this time. I’m not sure why.

I’m proud of my kids though. They’re doing something I never did, something I never seemed to have the wherewithal to accomplish.

I never struck out alone, in all of my plenty-two years. I lived with my parents until I started college, where I had a roommate. Very soon after I started, I dropped out of school and moved back home. A few months later, I joined the Army, living in the barracks in Germany, again with a roommate. After I got out of the Army, I moved back in with my folks. A few months later, I got married. My first wife and I lived in a trailer her parents owned.

They lived right next door. That may have been a tactical error.

Barely eighteen months later, I moved back home with my folks. I lived with them for about eighteen months until I “got my own apartment.” That was the story we told everyone. The reality was that Diana was there far more often than she was at her sorority house. Once she graduated, we abandoned all semblance of living apart.

So I’ve never lived completely alone.

I don’t know what it’s like to be completely dependent on myself.

I’ll admit that idea unnerved me more than a little bit when Diana and I were contemplating divorce. I had a house ready to move in to. Some of the kids would move in with me, I knew. But I’d basically have been on my own, and I don’t know how I would have handled that.

I wonder if at some level I’m a little jealous of my kids being able to do what they’re doing. I don’t know that I ever knew someone well enough to ask them to share a place like Erica did with her best friend. My brother and I were never close enough to be able to share a place like Ian and Owen are.

There’s a lot to envy right there.

This empty nest thing takes a little work to get used to.

We can lock the door for the night a lot earlier than we used to.

Athena won’t be barking when Owen comes from his closing shift. She gets her couch back, too; Ian had been sleeping on the hideaway bed since he got back from his Ohio job.

I’m still adjusting. But the end result is still the same. There aren’t as many cars in the driveway. The house is a little quieter.

And I’m feeling a little older and a little lonelier.

Is Downsizing Always A Bad Thing?

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Reading Time: about 6 minutes

In the business world, downsizing carries ominous undertones, because it usually means someone’s losing their job. It can happen for any number of reasons, from a national or worldwide economic downturn to technology and automation making jobs redundant. But the result is the same: the organization shrinks. Ideally, it becomes a more efficient organization, more capable of responding quickly to challenges and changes in its industry. But it’s almost always painful and can be messy. Kind of like getting old. Read More

Reading and Writing and Girl Scout Cookies

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Reading Time: about 5 minutes

Sorry for the short post this week. It’s Girl Scout cookie season and I’ve got two daughters selling cookies. One of them is in a travel troop, so we’ve been busy!

What’s a travel troop? Glad you asked (you did ask, didn’t you?). Normally when a Girl Scout sells cookies, a portion goes to her as “Cookie Credits,” and another portion goes to the troop. Some also goes to the local council and to national, but that doesn’t matter for a travel troop. Travel troops are set up with girls from different troops who want to go on some of the trips that a council plans. When they sell cookies (or fall product), the funds that would go to the troop still go to the troop, but they get applied toward trip expenses, reducing the personal funds the girls have to spend. Travel troop members still participate in functions with their regular troop. Olivia has sold door-to-door, and those funds go to her local troop. Anything she sells in a booth for the travel troop goes to her travel expenses.

Reading and Writing and Girl Scout Cookies - Writer | Unfocused

Our booth at the BOK center for the Tulsa Oilers game. We met Sledge!

Because the council is based in Tulsa, as is the travel troop leader, most of the booths she sets up are in Tulsa. We’ve done booths at Bass Pro, a Tulsa Oilers game, a TU men’s basketball game, as well as the typical Walmart and Sam’s Club booths, and it’s been a good season so far. The only catch is that we live about 40 miles outside of Tulsa, so each booth in town is a 90-mile round trip. So I’ve done lots of driving and lots of cookie selling, but not as much writing as I might have liked.

But my daughter is going to be visiting New York City and Washington D. C. this fall, and Scotland and Ireland next year. That’s going to make all of this worth it.

And because I’m a shameless Girl Scout Dad, I’m linking to her Digital Cookie page. She’s sold quite a few boxes, so don’t feel like you have to buy all 1,745 boxes of her goal. Although if you want to, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. If you’d like to split your purchases between my girls, here’s a link to Abigail’s Digital Cookie page.

I’m told the S’Mores taste really good if you microwave the cookies for about five seconds. Enjoy! Sales end March 18th.

February Reading

What did I read this month?

I went back to my military fiction and thriller roots for the first two. I’ve always been a big fan of the TEOTWAWKI genre, no matter the cause of the end of the world. A good writer doesn’t focus so much on the means of the end, but rather the story surrounding the end. It doesn’t matter if it’s zombies, a killer virus, nukes, or the weather: the story is about the people.

Given the amount of military fiction I used to read, I’m surprised I haven’t read David Poyer sooner. His Dan Lenson series sounds like something I’d really enjoy, and I’m going to work on catching up on it.

Reading and Writing and Girl Scout Cookies - Writer | UnfocusedHunter-Killer is the 17th book in the series, exploring a shooting war in the Pacific with China and the Associated Powers. The conflict began back in book 15, as I understand the Goodreads list of the series. I didn’t realize when I picked it up that it was that far along in the series, but I don’t feel like I missed out on that much. Poyer does a great job of sprinkling in the important information from the last book or two. I definitely want to work my way through this series. It’s a good thing my library seems to have most of them. Five stars.

Reading and Writing and Girl Scout Cookies - Writer | UnfocusedBrad Thor’s Use of Force looked interesting the day I picked it up in the library and I wasn’t disappointed.  It’s also a series book, this one about Scot Harvath, a SEAL turned Secret Service Agent turned covert operative. It felt like this series was a little less linear than Poyer’s Lenson series, and that I could jump around a bit in sequence without too much trouble.  Use of Force is fast paced, jumping from the Mediterranean to Burning Man to Spain, Rome and all over the Middle East. It’s got plenty of action: car chases, gunfights in hotels, and midnight raids against terrorist compounds. Four stars.

Word Count

My February word count was 25,970 words over 21 writing days. I only count a day as a writing day if I work on the blog or any of my fiction.

  • 2,542 in the blog (3 posts)
  • 3,839 in fiction
  • 2,366 in emails (wow, but I’m wordy!)
  • 17,233 on social media.

That’s about 19 percent less than last February, and puts me on track to hit 92 percent of my target. I’m not in bad shape when it comes to word count so far, but I’m not quite where I want to be. We’ll see how things go after cookie season.

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