S2 E32 How Do You Find Community in Military Life? | PCS Moves, Starting Over, and Finding Your People

Finding community as a military family sounds simple until you are in the thick of it. In this episode of Closing Chapters, Brittney gets personal about one of the most universal struggles military families face: starting over in a new place and figuring out where you belong.

Brittney walks through the full arc of her own journey, from a rooted, close-knit community in South Carolina built over six years, to the whirlwind of moves through South Dakota, back to South Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, and finally North Carolina. With a baby, two dogs, a new branch transition, and COVID in the mix, she unpacks what community deprivation actually looks like when life is moving too fast to catch your breath.

She also shares what finally worked: a mom's workout group in Tennessee, a gymnastics facility that led to a preschool spot, a church community that took time to find, and the slow but meaningful realization that the best signal of belonging often comes through your children. This episode is honest, warm, and packed with practical encouragement for any military family who has ever felt invisible in a new place.

Key Takeaways

• Building community from scratch is one of the hardest parts of military life, and it takes longer than anyone prepares you for.
• Trial and error is not failure. If a gym, church, school, or social group does not feel right, try again.
• Kids are often the fastest path into community. Their connections can open doors for the whole family.
• Military spouses pages and online groups are genuinely useful for local recommendations.
• Stability for your children does not require a permanent address. It requires intentional effort to find the right environments.
• Sometimes the right community is a little further away and still worth the drive.
• Serving your community and creating community can go hand in hand, as Brittney's furnished rental for military families shows.

🎧If this episode hit home, share it with a military family who is in the middle of a transition right now. Subscribe so you never miss a new episode, and leave a review to help other military families find this podcast. It truly makes a difference.

Closing Chapters Podcast: Where Every Mission Has A Story

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© 2025 Brittney Frye. All rights reserved. Realtor, license # 352197 in NC. Brokerage: REAL Broker l Military Division

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey my friend, welcome back to the closing chapters podcast where every mission has a story. Now, some of our friends had children, so it was totally fine for us to go around and be around their kids and like figure all that out. So it was relatively easy to still have our connections. But as time goes by, everything starts to dwindle away. That's true, military world. Hello, hello, friends. Welcome back. I want to talk to you about something that every military family goes through, has to consider, tries to make a plan for, and ultimately you have no control over it. And that is your community, initially, anyways. Finding your community, finding where you are meant to be when you are in the military life. And I can say that we are really in the thick of this right now, figuring it out and seeing what feels good and what is just awkward, and how do we navigate it? So let's talk about it a little bit. We originally started out in Sumter, South Carolina, and we were there for several years. So I was there for six years with my husband. I think he was stationed there for eight. That's a long time. And we had a core group of friends that were instilled in us, whether it was from people I met with the Chamber of Commerce or people from my husband's shop. And those people were typically like already his buddies, people he deployed with, like it was already built in. And that was prior to us having children. Now, some of our friends had children, so it was totally fine for us to go around and be around their kids and like figure all that out. So it was relatively easy to still have our connections. But as time goes by, everything starts to dwindle away. That's true military world. So our best friends that we had, they're they were like our family friends in general, and like their kids were our kids, that type of deal. And yeah, they we moved away from each other on purpose, honestly. They went through a pretty significant experience, and he was supposed to go to Korea, and he just said, There's no way I can leave my family right now. And so we were like, dude, we got your back 100%. So my husband took his orders and he went to Korea for a year, and our friends moved to Alaska. And it was so fast. It was just like a boom overnight. We're shipping up, like we're packing up and we're out. And that was like sad. They were like our stability, our foundation. That was who you called to problem solve things and came over and fixed whatever at your house, like that kind of friend. And like the wife, same deal. She was off to school and was worried about something at the house, and she could give me a call and I'd go over and check on the house or make sure the kids were good or whatever have you. We had each other's backs. So that's really started a new phase of life for us because during that year, it was really almost like a reset. My husband was gone in Korea. I just worked. I worked dark to dark and just did what I had to do, head down, hat at it. And the only thing that I did outside of that was like meals with friends. So I would go downtown to Sumter, and my friends would have a cranberry and vodka with a splash of spray waiting for me, and we would have dinner, and that was my reprieve on a Friday night. Or my girlfriend in the office, we usually had Thai food or Mexican several times a week for either lunch or dinner. And that was our routine. That's what we did. So that was very few things that I would be doing during that year, and very few people that I would be around, like outside of like my work transactions. So, anyhow, after my husband came home and we started doing our crazy moves, and that was we moved from South Carolina to South Dakota in July of 19. We were back in South Carolina, December of 19. He went off to Basic at Fort Jackson, 13 years in the Air Force, and turnaround had to go back to Basic to go into the Army crazy times. I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first child. And yeah, we were back in South Carolina. Then he had to go through trainings. It was during COVID. We got held up. It was a hot mess. I was in a rental because our houses were rented out, like all of our properties were rented. So that was interesting. So I had to pack us all up, newborn two dogs, tow his car, put everything in storage, and just go to Alabama and find him and wait until he could be released to us to then make the trip to Missouri. And we were in Missouri from June of 2020 till November of 2020. And then we were in Tennessee. And that was our first duty station for the Army. So honestly, most of 2019, like the back half of 2019 and most of 2020, a wash for us. Our world was just very up in arms. We were very volatile. We were going every which way. So once we got to Tennessee, now I have a baby. I have this little 10-month-old little girl. And what am I doing? How am I making friends? How am I starting in real estate again? What's built in for the military folks? Like they go to a unit and then they end up finding people they like in their unit at work every day. And it was very different for me. And they always say that it is harder to make friends or find your community as you get older, but put yourself in the thick of like young baby life, young kid life, and it's just even more hard. Because you see all those videos of trying to go to the park with toddlers or with babies, and two parents are trying to talk, and then it's up, I gotta go grab this kid. Oh, I gotta go. It doesn't, it's that's true. It does not work well. So the one thing that I found when I was in Tennessee is I joined a mom's workout group, Slam, Sweat Like a Mother, and that was amazing. The kids came with, you put them in a stroller, you set them up with their snacks, and they got to watch all the mamas work out. And then afterwards, we would hang out if it was appropriate and we had the time to do everybody shared snacks. All the kids got to co-mingle and play. Usually, if we were outside, we could be like in a tennis court that was gated or inside of a gym. So, like we had a little bit of a reprieve of okay, our kids are in these four walls to some degree. But yeah, it was that was about it, right? We didn't really have much else going for us. If it wasn't one of the moms and the mom's group, it was my clients that we would see every once in a while. And it was just not really like a sense of security or community or a tight knit. And then when we got to North Carolina in spring of 24, it was the same kind of thing. It was like, okay, we had a house waiting for us. We moved into our house. My husband starts work. Oh, by the way, five months in, you're gonna deploy. So the second that we feel like we're getting our grounding, like we're getting settled, we've done, we're doing renovations on our house, there's really not a whole lot of time to make friends and go out and do stuff when you're doing renovations on a house. Every minute you were just doing something. And then our whole life went topsy turvy. Uh, again, we had a bad experience with the school. I had no idea that I would experience that with a four-year-old. I thought, no big deal. Like, we really didn't think that much into the school systems because we were like, okay, my husband's gonna be hitting 20 years, she'll be seven, we'll be all right for a couple of years wherever we're at, right? Like, it can't be that bad. If you know my little goody tissue's child that loves everybody and absolutely thrives in school, you would never expect for her to start coming home with red days, missing out on special stickers, whatever have you. And come to find out, when I shared some concerns with it, the teacher was blaming a separate child for things that didn't wasn't even involved, like saying there was a special needs child that was a male in the classroom that had done something, and it was a little girl that had actually done something to my daughter. And I'm like, that's there's red flags all over the place here. Like you're telling me my daughter's not behaving, and I we've never had an issue with that. Not to say that that can't happen, because she's human, she has her moments too, but in a school setting, she's she usually thrives. And then, two, I'm telling you that she's coming home and telling me there's issues with a particular child, and you think it's a totally different child, like you actually watched it happen and you're blaming another child, not buying it, just not. So, anyhow, it got to a point where it was like, all right, what are we doing? Am I just taking her out for the school year? And so we had already missed, but they were in preschool in Tennessee, both kids were. So we left there January, the end of January of 24. So they had already been out for the rest of that year. And so we were like, okay, are we just taking her back out again? Or is this like a bad habit to be like, hey, you've got to work through the hard things? And I really just didn't know what to do. I was asking moms and my mom's group at church, and lo and behold, I got an email from the facility that my daughter was doing gymnastics at in Southern Pines, and also that took a minute too. We went to one facility that was a little bit closer to us, and it was not that was the one thing that was really good for my daughter. My daughter was very lucky in Tennessee. She was at an amazing preschool and an amazing gymnastics facility. So when you have that as the bar, it's really hard when you're trying to compete with that again. So, anyways, we went to the gymnastics facility and it just wasn't, it wasn't doing it for any of us. So we tried this other gymnastics facility over in Pinehurst, Aberdeen area, and it was amazing. And honestly, it was one of those places where you pull up to it to get to it, you're like, oh, I don't know about this. And then when you go inside, you're like, okay, like you're greeted with smiles and friendly people, and it is light and bright, and there's just life happening. So she was doing really good in gymnastics there, and we got an email saying that there is a four-year-old slot in the preschool. And so I asked my husband, I was like, What do you think? And we were gonna go from two or three days a week to five days a week. So pretty significant changes. And it was 45 minutes away from our house. And I just felt like it was like the best option. And it was what a blessing, truly a blessing. Our little girl went from just really being disappointed and not having a good time at school to truly being back in her element and owning her life and being so happy and excited about school and just thriving in her environment, to the point that when she was getting ready to go to kindergarten, she didn't want to go because she just wanted her Miss Ashley back. And she still gets to see her teachers and love on them and everybody within this community, like the gymnastic side and the preschool side, they're all intertwined and love and support the kids and families so much. And that is amazing. So that was our turn. That was like the turning point to finding community for us. For the first time, my daughter is four, my son is one and a half, two, and we feel like there's something good happening, right? Like we see all of the good starting to happen. We love the church that we found, was not the first church we went to, right? Everything came, we really realized that if it doesn't feel good, we have to be willing to try again. And that is hard for us. Like we really just want to pick it and go and be good with it. And that was a big learning curve to say, all right, just because I'm here, just because this is convenient to me, does not mean that it's the best fit and it's okay to try again. So now we are in an amazing church community that loves our kiddos, and we are starting to find our footing, and that has also been harder for us. Finding community for our children has been much easier than us branching out and opening up to people and inviting them in. And that is something we're still working on. But what I will say to you is that when so my daughter was doing so well in her environment, we felt good and comfortable at our church, and it was like, okay, we've got to hop and jump. So if you know our story, you know that we moved a year after being here to Moore County and now live in Aberdeen. And that was a huge jump, and it felt like a lot of heavy conversations where it was like, we bought this house, we should have waited, we should have rented, we shoulda, shoulda. That's not our typical MO, right? If we can have an asset, we want to have an asset, and we still do. Wait, it it was a moment for us to get creative and learn how we could shift and change and help our community in a different way. Because that house we could not sell, we could not rent traditionally and make it work. However, we made it a furnished rental, and it has been such a wonderful tool for some of the military families that we have helped. And what I mean by that is like we have had several families that have come with the intentions of being there a couple weeks and ended up staying in our home for a couple of months. And thankfully, it's typically always worked out that we've been able to facilitate that. Now we're at a point where the property is booked through July and it's all military families. It's all we have a family that's been there for several months right now that has work being done on their property that had some flood damage. And then we have a family that is PCSing and incoming and waiting for a house to be built and needs to have somewhere to stay for a little while. And then we have the opposite in July. We have a family that is going to be retiring from the military and moving back home. And they have a little bit of lead time between like when they need to, like when all their household goods are gonna be picked up and when the final outdate is gonna be. So they're gonna stay with us for that transition. That is so cool. So cool. And we are so proud that we are able to provide a safe and healthy home for these folks while they're in this transition. So now we feel like it there's no second guessing where we're at. We love the community we're in, and we are learning to find new connections to flourish and nourish those relationships. But we are so learning the importance of trial and error. So if you are a military family and you are going somewhere and trying to find your community and it just doesn't work the first time, try again, try somewhere else. If you have to go a little bit further, it might be worth it. The spouses' pages are honestly wonderful resources. You have such a big dynamic. You have the best of the best and the worst of the worst on all these spouses' pages. However, if you need a suggestion and you say, hey, this is what I'm looking for, it is there. Man, people will share. And especially if they're loving it, they will share so wholeheartedly and tell you everything that it has done for them or why they love this experience, this product, this whatever. So lean into that, and you never know what might be lying behind a closed door for you. So I would totally encourage any military family to branch out, try several different things when you're trying to get used to community and see what truly feels good to you. And one of the ways that we know we've made it, we've done it, we found the spot, right? I told is through our children, honestly. It really lies in our children. We go to the 8 a.m. service at our church, it's a lot less chaotic for us. The kids can be in their classes and they're not as busy, so it works well for us. And then we also have some of our friends that go to the 9:30 service, so we get to see them in passing when everybody's dropping off kids and stuff. So it works out well. But we honestly like going when it's not so busy and chaotic, and we also like leaving our house and it taking no more than eight to ten minutes to get to church. It's pretty cool. And we're like across town, so it's you would think it would take longer, but we do a great job of just getting door to door, and it's very nice. And then to leave and it's still not super chaotic in town and to get home and settle for the day is has just been good for us. But when we show up to church, our children are magnets to people. And this morning was no different. We're pulling in the parking lot and they see someone that they know that's walking in the parking lot going inside. And it's a gentleman that my husband worked with to help clear out possessions out of an estate property that were going to be donated to his see his like charity. And he takes it and like literally goes door to door and puts items in people's houses that need it. So it's amazing. So they know Mr. Gary, so they saw Mr. Gary, so they needed to run and go say hi to him, and they both just loved him up and gave him big hugs, and it just made his morning. And then we go to try to go drop off the kids, and my son's preschool teacher also goes to our 8 a.m. service. So I see her and she squats down, and I told my husband, I said, let him loose. And Weston goes running across the church to go get to his person, to go get to his teacher, who is amazing. So he gets to love up on her, and then we get to the ticket counter, like to get they get their little name tags and printing out their name tags, and it's time for the kids to get to their classroom. And there is a gentleman, Mr. Bob, that my son has to go run and jump to and do high 10. So he's he sees them and he's locked in and he's ready. So Weston has to run and jump and go give high 10. Dad has to take Clara to class, like that is their thing. She requires that he drops her off if he is home. So, anyways, it is just so cool to see their ecosystem and all of the love and the people that they run into in between just getting them to service and then go getting out. Hey! I just wanted to say thank you for being here and listening in on this episode of Closing Chapters with me. I truly enjoy putting this content together, and I hope that you enjoy it too. If so, could you like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you know that will enjoy it just as much as you did? Thank you so much.