I haven’t kept it a big secret that this is hardly my favorite place in the world. Eight months ago, my Marine husband and I PCSed to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune from the most beautiful little city on the coast of central California, and I’ve never battled so much with feeling content. We bought our house sight unseen and drove for over 50 hours across the United States to the tiny town in which we now reside.
There was so much excitement to see this new place where we are going to live for years. I’ve been all over the country but never to North Carolina and I had no idea what to expect–I remember turning the corner of the road that leads to our house past an old abandoned batting cage and dilapidated trailer homes with rusted out cars and wheelbarrows littering the yards and waiting for it to get better. Everyone told us to move to our town on the outskirts of the city because it was by far the nicest in the area but there was nothing nice around me.
My heart was in my shoes. There were no sidewalks, no shops to walk to, no downtown, no cute mom and pop cafes–just narrow winding roads, trailer homes that were falling apart, and countless auto and hardware stores. I kept waiting to get to the nice part and found nothing.
Alas.
When we were finally able to see our home in person, 30 minutes before our meeting at the realtor’s office to close on our new house, I felt slightly better. Maybe it won’t be so bad here. At least we live in a great home.
The next day we went into Jacksonville to fill our house with furniture. We drove around to buy a mattress and half of the home section of Ross and to find a place to eat. Where was downtown? There’s a huge street lined with every chain store you could imagine, but where was the character? What was the culture of this city? Was there no pretty store lined street to meander down on lazy Thursday evenings? The answer is, as anyone who has ever lived in Jacksonville knows, no. There is technically a historic downtown but it’s not the type of street you stroll down with your family in the afternoons.
Basically, Jacksonville was founded in 1757 as a center of production for naval stores, and it was itty bitty. In 1941, New River (later known as Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune) was established and the tiny town exploded with growth as Marines and their families started pouring in. Although the Marine Corps didn’t found the town, they grew it. Hence why the “culture” is bars, barber shops, retail stores, and adult entertainment–because without Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville would hardly exist.
I was told by a lady when I moved here, “If you’re pretty, the women won’t like you. They’re afraid you might steal their husbands.”
What?! They’re afraid I might steal their husbands???
Thankfully, so far, that hasn’t been my experience with meeting anyone. The ladies I have gotten to know are friendly, sweet, and trusting–oh, but the online world of Facebook networking sites tells a different story. Many of the girl here are vicious. Also, it appears that their worries are founded. Infidelity is a major issue.
Really, so many of the people in this area simply seem depressed. They are sick of living in a cultureless place, they are sick of their husbands being gone, they are sick of raising their kids away from family, they are sick of whitewashed base housing, they might simply be physically sick because the water quality stinks. The Marine Corps can be soul sucking and the city has adopted that as it’s culture.
New Marines come here motivated as anything out of boot camp and MCT and they realize that the fleet is not like they were told it would be. They are treated like the property they basically signed themselves away to be. Wives who have seen the romanticized version of being a military wife on TV shows and in movies are severely disappointed by the harsh reality that people are not reaching out to them to make friends and their husbands are constantly exhausted, overworked, and under appreciated. They come with big dreams, they arrive, and their dreams slowly die.
When your husband signs a contract with the government, he sticks to that contract. The light at the end of the tunnel is so far away you can’t even see a glimmer of the end.
It’s not easy to be content in a place where everyone gets through life wishing time away. Only a few more hours until he comes home. I just have to get through until he comes back from his training exercise. I only have to make it to end of this deployment. I just have to make it until we PCS. There’s only few more months until he gets out.
Sometimes you have to look forward with the end in mind to get through military life but that doesn’t lead to contentment in the place that we are in now–Jacksonville, NC.
Having my dad here for the past week helped me look at the place I live with new eyes. It’s hardly glamorous and totally lacks culture, but it makes that much easier to be a light. People in this area tend to complain, they feel bad about their situation, and they wish their lives looked different. To shine brightly I simply have to start by being learning to be satisfied.
Not comparing Jacksonville to places I’ve lived before helps, too. I grew up on a tropical island known as the Pearl of the Orient before I moved to the beach town paradise of Santa Barbara, California. I then lived in the beautiful English countryside and then moved to the cutest coastal town ever in Central California. Jacksonville is certainly not as stunning as any of those places, but it has it’s own beauty. I love the view on the bridges over New River when the sun is setting and the orange and red clouds are reflecting off the rippling water. The drive to the grocery store is quiet, windy, and tree-lined. We go to church on the coolest beach island and the marshes on the way are gorgeous.
There are trees everywhere and I like green. If you’re a nature person, there’s all sorts of that here. Sure, there might not be much to do in nature, but there is nature!
Also in Jacksonville is every chain store imaginable, so there’s nowhere I want to go they don’t have (except for Trader Joe’s…I literally drive the hour down to Wilmington for Trader Joe’s) and there are major cities within reasonable driving distance that we can go to when we get stir crazy. Wilmington is one of my favorite cities on this coast and being able to go on a whim is a huge blessing. Then D.C. and even NYC are within driving distance if we’re willing to sit in the car for a while. Even though there is literally nothing to do in the immediate area except shop and go out to eat, there are places to travel and we love to travel! My husband has taken me on spontaneous weekend trips to Charlotte, NC and Nyack, NY just because we could.
Houses are crazy cheap in this part of the US. We are paying the same amount for our amazing home here as we paid in California for a tiny hole-in-the-wall apartment that was maybe 600 sqft. We literally lived in the converted laundry room of our apartment complex because that was all we could afford. No longer–we have certainly upgraded since then.
There’s a cupcake shop around the corner that’s fabulous. We’re not supposed to be eating sugar but whenever I get a chance to go you can be sure that I take it.
Although many in the area are bitter and depleted, you also find a special type of resiliency and joy. Our church is alive and thriving, filled with local and military families who know when they find their joy in Jesus instead of looking to their circumstances to be happy they will be satisfied. The military makes strong couples stronger and slowly widens the cracks in the weak couples and it will show you what type of couple you are quickly.
It might seem like I’m grasping at straws while trying to find reasons to be satisfied here.
I sort of am, but I like to call it counting my blessings. There are a million other reasons why this place is great, but I don’t need to list them all–if you live here, sit back for two minutes and see how many you can count. I promise you that they are there if you look. Yes, I talk about blessing counting a lot but that’s because my attitude is reliant on it. We don’t live in a fantastic place and the military is not a fantastic lifestyle–it takes legitimate intentionality to find satisfaction.
Especially in a place where people come with big dreams and it feels like they slowly die.
My solution to that was finding a new dream compatible with the military life. I started my own business where I can work literally anywhere, anytime, as much or as little as I want. Eventually I’ll find complete financial and time freedom and our dreams will become reality. The dreams I had didn’t work with the life I live so I found new dreams instead and they’re different but in many ways they’re better. We adjust and adapt to where we are and we learn how to roll with change.
Last night my husband and I watched Passengers (warning: spoiler alerts.)
The new movies Jennifer Lawrence has been in have been pretty odd so I wasn’t convinced about this one but, yes, I’ll admit that it was good. Back story: Humans have found a new inhabitable planet but it takes 120 years of space travel to get there so volunteers who want to start a new life are put into a 120 year hibernation and are supposed to wake up 4 months before the ship lands on the new planet but something goes wrong and the two main characters wake up 90 years early.
Throughout the majority of the movie we wondered how it could possibly have a happy ending. Was going back to sleep really a happy ending? Someone dying wouldn’t be happy. It’s not like they were going to become immortal and make it off the ship young with everyone else. Was just the two of them alone for 90 years really a happy ending?
As it turns out, they got their happy ending. Roll your eyes all you want, but I think that’s one of the most romantic movies I have ever seen. Yes, unbridled passion is romantic. Forbidden love is romantic (sometimes.) Star crossed lovers are romantic. Ninety years alone on a ship traveling through space is none of those things. Sure, maybe at the beginning it is, but unbridled passion does not last for ninety years on a stinking space ship. Life would get very old and very boring very fast.
Yet they’re happy.
On a space ship. Literally entirely alone. Can you imagine how easy it would be to get bored and go stir crazy? It doesn’t matter how cool that space ship was, 90 years is a very long time and they still died happy. Y’all, that is real romance.
That is the opportunity I have here with my husband. Divided by about a million because I have friends and I have people around me and I’m not stuck for the rest of my life in space.
Could I really be that happy with my husband for ninety years? Today is our anniversary. We have been married for two years and it’s been the happiest two years of my life, but could I do it for 45 more two years? I won’t be entirely alone with my husband for the rest of my life and many times I won’t be with him at all–that’s military life–but then every time he comes back it’s a chance for a honeymoon all over again so we hardly even have the chance to get bored of each other.
But we live in a mundane place. Often we live mundane lives. Champagne in Paris or drifting down canals is Venice is undeniably romantic, but Jacksonville, NC is ordinary and being content during our time here is the test of real love. We will pass that test, and that is real romance.
Jacksonville will never be my ideal place to live. I would never choose this place to raise my kids and start my business, but here I am, raising my kids and starting my business. Many people have heard me grumble about how lame it is here and I’ll admit that hasn’t changed–I still think it’s pretty lame here. But I’m working on being content.
I’m counting my blessings. I’m getting involved in my church. I’m stopping to talk to my neighbors when I pass them on the side of the road. I’m looking at the city through the eyes of someone who isn’t stuck here (and it’s not so bad!) and I’m trying to banish phrases like “stuck here” from my vocabulary. Satisfaction is a choice, and I agree that it is a hard one, but it is a choice that I choose to make every day. My husband reminds me when I start to fail, and then I make the choice again. It doesn’t come naturally; I understand.
Choose to count those blessings today. Isn’t it absolutely beautiful weather outside? Not too hot–not too cold. Take a walk and breathe in the fresh air. If you live near Western Blvd, there will be no naturey-fresh air for you, but many of the restaurants do smell awfully good. Go to Aldis and revel in how cheap the produce is. Remember that the obnoxious guys with the high and tight haircuts sitting next to you at Chilis who can’t stop spewing out profanities work really, really hard to protect America. Give them thanks instead of dirty looks. When your house shakes from artillery fire and it wakes up the baby–’tis the sound of freedom! When you’re stuck behind tactical vehicles on a one lane road, snap a picture (unless you’re driving) and send it to your little brother who has always had a fascination with tanks.
When your husband comes home from his deployment, it might be a fight to readjust but it’s also the chance for another honeymoon. Think about how proud you are instead of how lonely you’ve been. Find real romance in the mundane.
Because Jacksonville, NC, doesn’t have to be the city of dying dreams.
We can be satisfied here.