Military Spouse Spotlight: Claire

If you’re a military spouse, you’ve probably heard the phrase “bloom where you’re planted” more times than you can count. The advice is well-meaning and helpful, but when, as Claire puts it, your roots have been ripped out again and again, how do you find the spirit within you to grow, let alone bloom? 

Claire’s husband is a Navy pediatrician and dive medicine doctor, and his training and service have taken their family of six from one coast to another and, most recently, across the Pacific to Hawaii.

Claire chronicles their travels and shares her tips and tricks through her Instagram account, Coastal.adventurefamily.

Starting Their Navy Medical Journey

While Claire and her husband grew up in Las Vegas near Nellis Air Force Base, they weren’t familiar with the realities of military life; for example, Claire was surprised to learn that Nellis AFB had its own movie theater. However, the couple had married “kind of young” and were about to embark on a significant change: medical school.

Claire described herself as “fiscally conservative” but her husband as “very frugal,” so he was eager to find ways to reduce or eliminate the weighty costs of medical school. While they were walking down the street together, they discussed the idea of having him join the military. One of her husband’s cousins had joined the military to pay for his medical school, and Claire thought that joining the Navy would be fun because they would be by the ocean.

Naively, she rejected the idea of the Air Force because she didn’t want to stay in Las Vegas; seeing how far the military can send her family, Claire can look back at her thought process and laugh. After praying together about the decision, they met with a recruiter, and it all felt “seamless.” In fact, there was “no doubt in my mind…we knew that’s what we were supposed to do.” 

That is not to say, however, that their military journey was not without its challenges. Claire gave birth to their first child just two weeks before her husband started medical school, their second during her husband’s OB clinical rotation, their third three weeks before her husband left for dive school, and COVID separated their family for months, and their fourth when her husband served as a dive officer before completing his residency.

The family has crisscrossed the country, accepting billets that were far from their dream locations and starting over again and again when it came to jobs and friendships. Nonetheless, Claire has found ways to thrive in each duty station and discovered new and unexpected joys in her military and personal journeys. 

The Eras of Military Life and Motherhood

Like Taylor Swift, Claire categorizes their military journey into “eras.” Reno, where her husband attended medical school, was her “motherhood” era, where she learned how to be a mom. Before her husband started medical school, Claire was an adjunct anatomy and physiology professor with aspirations to get her Master’s in Global Health at the University of Utah. Having their first child represented a major shift in her life; no longer in school or working, Claire found herself relying on her new best friend to navigate the early days of motherhood. The two later shared a middle school teaching position together before Claire shifted to working retail.

Claire found humor as she relayed what could have been the stressful circumstances of her second birth. Her husband was on his OB clinical rotation while she was in labor, and, due to unforeseen circumstances, got a little extra delivery practice. Claire had the rare opportunity to do a hospital water birth, and because the nurse didn’t believe her when she said the baby was coming, her husband unintentionally stepped in to catch their second baby. Ironically, the timing meant that he missed his OB shelf exam, but at least he got some hands-on experience instead.

Learning the Importance of Community

Her husband did his intern year at Portsmouth Naval Hospital, which Claire dubbed her era of “community.” She and her kids lived in a tight-knit neighborhood for two years where “I learned the importance of community and the beauty of friends becoming family and exploring where you live.” Their eight neighbors became their lifelines during this uniquely busy period. She loved living on the East Coast—a place she had romanticized—for the first time, and she made the most of exploring their new home. However, the rosy glow faded a little with the birth of their third child. 

Because of their newborn daughter’s medical condition and the young ages of their two older children, Claire and her husband thought it would be best if she and the kids stayed in Virginia while he rotated between Connecticut and Florida for dive school. While they would be separated for months, they took solace in knowing they would visit each other when they could. However, just a couple of months into her daughter’s life and her husband’s training, COVID took the United States by storm, and their plans of being together as a family were put on hold. The family was separated from January to July 2020, and Claire packed up and moved with her kids to San Diego without her husband. She was heartbroken to leave behind the strong support system that she had so relied on through this difficult period. 

Creating a Home at a New Duty Station

Looking back on this move, Claire admitted that she was sad that they didn’t get to stay in Virginia. Like so many military families, she had made a plan, she had her dreams, and she had her comfort zone, but she was unexpectedly forced to scrap it all for a place far from what she chose or wanted. They lived in military housing for the first time, and while they did make some strong friendships, they didn’t have the same instant community as Virginia.

Rather than dwelling on all that she had lost, Claire took advice from the life-changing book, This is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live by Melody Warnick. Dubbing this her “exploring” era, Claire and her family fell in love with biking, especially to the beach. Walking and biking, Warnick advised, helps families to see their communities in a new light, and those early emotional connections are key for transient military families. 

In addition to biking, Claire and her family have discovered that finding the familiar and establishing routines that align with their family culture are key to making a new city feel like home. For example, because Claire is an avid runner, finding a 5-mile running route “helps me feel more connected to a place.” Similarly, finding parks, libraries, and grocery stores gives them a sense of normalcy and familiarity.

Creating Connection Through Faith, Routines, and Exploration

Because their family is Mormon, their temple gives them a sense of peace and the reminder that not everything around them is strange and foreign. While each church community might be a little different, the beliefs and architecture provide a sense of peace and familiarity. These discoveries won’t all happen in a day, but Claire believes that investing time in your first month to exploring will pay off in spades in the long run. 

Another way that Claire came to embrace San Diego was by making a bucket list on her Notes app. The Internet can be full of haters who can point out the worst in any city, so Claire advises that you talk to people who’ve been stationed at your new home and ask them what they love about it. The list gives you something to look forward to and accomplish, especially in those awkward first few weeks when you’re trying to make a new group of friends. Plus, talking to experienced families can help you to get the inside scoop about the best beaches, restaurants, hiking trails, and other “locals-only” places that an Internet search won’t provide. 

When PCS Orders Are Not What You Wanted

Claire found “solace and enjoyment in exploring for four years,” and ultimately she “loved San Diego with my whole heart and soul.” When her husband finished residency, she knew that his new role as an attending would come with another move. However, she wasn’t expecting Camp Lejeune to be their next destination.

North Carolina wasn’t even on their list of potential next duty stations, and after planning out scenarios for five likely locations, this complete surprise was especially disorienting. The only thing Claire knew about Camp Lejeune was that her husband had told her years prior that she wouldn’t like living there. Claire found herself in tears because she had “put so much of my soul into loving San Diego,” and she was forced to start over yet again.

Claire’s negative mindset began to soften after she shared her disappointment with a church leader. He told her that while her “Plan A” and “Plan B” were no longer on the table, her “Plan C” was exactly what was supposed to happen for her family. He promised her that her moment of realization would come. Ultimately, he was right, but it would take two years for that to fully sink in. 

Finding the Good in an Unexpected Duty Station

Two years after they settled into North Carolina, Claire’s family was preparing again for their next move, and it suddenly struck her that “we know why we’re supposed to be here.” As the movers packed their things and her children said goodbye to their friends, it became clear to her that her unexpected and unwanted “Plan C” was something her family needed, even if it was something she had never envisioned. 

Even though all the Internet trolls gave Claire a million reasons to hate Camp Lejeune, she “can say with my whole heart I loved North Carolina…if you try there’s so much goodness there.” It was clear to her that beauty comes when you put effort into loving where you live. Yes, there were ticks, bugs, and mold, but there were also beach sunrises and shark teeth and the moment of pride when the effort she’d put into discovering her new home paid off. 

A New Adventure in Hawaii

Hawaii is the first duty station that Claire and her family had been able to pick, and while the decision helped to eliminate some anticipatory anxiety, there is the lingering fear that if Hawaii isn’t a good fit, it will have been their own fault for choosing it. Her husband had originally planned to leave the Navy and work as a civilian doctor, but none of the interviews felt quite right for him.

Claire suggested that he reach out about dive medicine positions in the Navy, and the detailers let him know that because he was the first to ask, he could have the first pick of the available billets. Hawaii immediately jumped out to them as an ideal choice; because of their daughter’s health condition, they are unable to accept an overseas position, so Hawaii gives them the closest taste to living abroad. The timing is also serendipitous because their oldest will be entering high school when they return to the continental US. 

Claire has found herself chunking her family’s life into her husband’s tours and is sad about how few moves remain until her oldest graduates from high school. Looking ahead also led her to regretfully look back on all the things her children missed because of their nomadic military lifestyle. Her children did not get the consistency of her childhood, and while she wanted to branch away from Las Vegas, she still grieves for her children not getting the experiences that shaped her own happy youth. However, she reminds herself that her children have uniquely exciting and interesting lives and “just because it’s different than mine doesn’t mean it isn’t magical or less than.” 

What Military Spouses Can Take From Claire’s Story

This latest move has been a reminder of all the uncertainty and anxiety that comes with moving to a new place. They don’t know where they’re going to live, and it could be weeks until they know exactly where “home” will be in Hawaii. They’re preparing to live in a hotel for the foreseeable future, which, as her family has pointed out, seems unusual from the outside.

“You don’t realize how crazy it is until a parent or sibling points it out,” Claire observed after spending a chunk of the summer with her family. She’s excited to begin crossing things off her ever-present bucket list with her husband and children and to share her adventures with her social media audience, hopefully inspiring them to explore a little more themselves. 

Katie McDonald is a Navy wife, and she and her husband are currently stationed in Guam. After 5 years as an English teacher, Katie is currently working as a freelance writer and enjoys writing about books and travel. https://www.katiereads.com/