My name is Kara, and I teach fitness classes on cruise ships for a living. People hear that and imagine I’m always bouncing around in leggings with perfect energy, shouting motivational things like “feel the burn” or “you’ve got this!” And yes, sometimes that’s true. But nobody talks about the quiet parts of this job — the afternoons when the music stops, the classes end, and the ship gets strangely peaceful.
That’s when the real work starts. Not the physical work. The mental work.
When I first started this job, I thought I’d spend every break socializing, exploring ports, or hanging out by the pool with the other crew members. Turns out, teaching four classes before noon makes you feel like you’ve run a marathon, swum the length of the ship, and climbed a small mountain all before lunchtime. By the time my break hits, I don’t want noise. I don’t want company. I don’t even want to hear upbeat music for at least two hours.
I just want quiet.
The thing is, ships aren’t quiet places. People talk loudly in hallways. Kids run by wearing swim goggles for absolutely no reason. Announcements happen just when you think the world has finally calmed down. The pool deck blasts music nonstop. Even the elevators make weird beeping sounds that echo in your brain.
But there’s one little spot I found my first week on board — a tucked-away lounge near the back of the ship. It’s only used at night, mostly for small events or karaoke. During the day, it’s empty except for a few scattered chairs and the sound of the ocean outside the window.
I didn’t plan on turning it into my little sanctuary. I wandered in one afternoon because my legs felt like noodles and I needed somewhere to sit that wasn’t the staff break room. The break room is fine if you want to hear gossip or listen to someone rant about laundry schedules. But it’s terrible when you want your thoughts to stop bouncing off the walls.
So I found the lounge, curled up on one of the soft chairs, and just breathed.
That first day, I didn’t write anything. I closed my eyes, listened to the sea, and let my muscles relax. But my mind wouldn’t relax. It jumped from class routines to passenger questions to whether someone had left a yoga mat unrolled (which, shockingly, happens more than you’d think). And in the middle of all that noise inside my head, I had this sudden thought:
“Maybe I need to put this somewhere.”
So I went back to my cabin, grabbed the little notebook I brought but hadn’t used yet, and carried it back to the lounge.
I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t think of myself as a writer. Honestly, my handwriting looks like someone gave a pen to a squirrel. But I started small. I wrote:
“I am exhausted.”
Then I wrote:
“But it’s a good kind of exhausted.”
That was it. Ten words. But I felt different afterward. Lighter. Like I had made room in my head for the kind of quiet I couldn’t find anywhere else on the ship.
So the next day, I wrote again.
And the next.
And then it became a ritual.
Every afternoon, after my last class, I grab water, wipe off the sweat, put on a clean shirt (the bare minimum), and walk to that quiet lounge. I sit by the same window with the same view of nothing but blue water and pale sky. And then I write.
Not for anyone else. Not for passengers. Not for social media. Not for some grand future project.
Just for me.
Some days I write about my classes. Like the time an older man accidentally catapulted a resistance band across the room and almost hit himself on the rebound. Or the couple who always holds hands during cooldown. Or the woman who thanked me because my class helped her feel strong for the first time in years.
Those stories stay with me. Not the dramatic ones. The small ones. The ones that remind me why I do this job — not because I love lunges (I don’t), but because people carry so much inside them, and sometimes movement helps them let a little of it go.
But I don’t only write about work. Sometimes I write about the ocean. Sometimes I write about the loneliness that comes from living on a ship full of people but still feeling like your own little island. Sometimes I write about missing my family back home. Sometimes I write about the way the sunlight looks on the carpet at three in the afternoon. Simple thoughts. Honest ones.
There’s something grounding about putting things on paper. Writing feels like placing a warm cloth over my mind after a long day. It slows me down in a way nothing else does. It’s the opposite of the fast-paced, upbeat, always-smiling part of my job. It’s the soft part I didn’t know I needed until I started giving it space.
Passengers don’t see this version of me. They see the Kara who can hold a plank for longer than seems healthy, or the one who can remember thirty names in one morning, or the one who pretends her legs aren’t burning even though they absolutely are.
But the Kara in the lounge? She’s different. She’s quiet. She’s gentler. She notices things instead of rushing past them. She breathes in time with the waves. And she writes about the things that slipped through the cracks earlier in the day.
Sometimes I see familiar faces in the lounge. An older man who carries a notebook like it’s made of glass. A young woman who types furiously without taking a single breath. A couple who reads side by side in total silence. We don’t talk. But we share that space the way you share a soft moment with strangers — without needing to fill it.
There’s comfort in that.
One afternoon, a passenger joined me by accident. She walked in, saw me writing, and almost left. But I smiled, and she sat down.
“You always write here?” she asked.
“Just when I need the quiet,” I said.
She nodded like she understood something she hadn’t known she was looking for. Then she pulled out her own notebook — something small and green with a ribbon bookmark — and started writing too.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t even exchange names. But we wrote together, side by side, letting the quiet settle over us like a blanket.
When she left, she said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For making it feel okay to sit still,” she said.
And I swear those words stayed with me for days.
Because that’s all writing is, really. It’s sitting still long enough to hear yourself again.
Working on a ship means you’re always surrounded by movement. People rushing to shows. People lining up for trivia. People running to get a better pool chair. Even the crew moves nonstop. We’re always adjusting, always reacting, always preparing for the next thing.
But in the lounge, in those soft afternoon hours, the movement fades. And I can finally feel the shape of my own thoughts.
Sometimes I worry that I’m not doing this “writing thing” right. I’m not writing beautifully. My sentences are messy. My lines don’t always make sense. But I’ve realized that writing isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being honest. And I spend so much of my job encouraging people to push themselves that I forget I’m allowed to just be.
Writing reminds me of that.
One day, I wrote: “I’m learning to hear myself again.”
Another day, I wrote: “Stillness makes everything feel more real.”
And on the days when classes leave me drained, I write things like: “I need to be gentle with myself.”
There’s a strange beauty to those lines. Not because they’re good, but because they belong entirely to me.
Near the end of the voyage, I looked back at the pages I’d filled. Some were smudged with sweat from long mornings. Some were wrinkled from being stuffed in my bag. Some had shaky handwriting from days when my arms felt like jelly. But all of them held pieces of my days — pieces I wouldn’t remember otherwise.
That’s why writing matters to me.
It doesn’t make me more productive. It doesn’t help me organize anything. It doesn’t change my job. But it changes how I move through it. It makes me softer. It makes me pay attention. It gives me a place to put the things I carry but never talk about.
People assume fitness instructors are always confident. Always energetic. Always upbeat. But we’re human. We get overwhelmed. We get lonely. We get tired. Writing helps me name those things without letting them weigh me down.
Sometimes I worry that passengers think I disappear in the afternoons because I’m avoiding them. But the truth is, I disappear because the quiet saves me. The lounge gives me room to breathe. And writing gives me a way to understand the days as they’re happening instead of years later when the memories blur.
If anyone else needs a place to start — a simple place to sit with your own thoughts — I found something gentle and steady here. It's really creative and enjoyable to read too.
Just a plain link. Just a small doorway for anyone who might need one.
When the ship docks at the end of each voyage, I carry my notebook off with me. Not because it’s filled with masterpieces. But because it’s filled with me. The version of me who slows down. The version who listens. The version who breathes.
And that’s the version I want to carry home.
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