Steel Floors and Salt Air

My first ship didn’t feel romantic.

It smelled like metal and fuel.

The floors were steel. The walls were gray. Everything echoed.

When you step onto a ship for the first time, you realize how small you are. Not emotionally. Physically. The ladders are steep. The passageways narrow. The doors heavy.

You don’t glide anywhere. You climb.

Ships don’t care if you’re insecure.

They don’t care if you were the new girl in high school or the quiet sister in folding chairs. They care if you know your job.

I liked that.

There’s something comforting about steel. It doesn’t shift based on mood. It doesn’t whisper rumors. It doesn’t decide who you are when you walk into a room.

It holds.

The first time we left port, I stood on deck and watched the shoreline shrink. Florida turned into a thin line. Then a blur. Then nothing.

It didn’t scare me.

Movement had always been familiar.

But this was different.

This time I wasn’t the child being relocated.

I was part of the machine making the move happen.

At sea, you learn quickly who pulls their weight. You learn who cuts corners. You learn who panics and who steadies.

You also learn that the ocean doesn’t negotiate.

It doesn’t care about your bad day. It doesn’t care about your heartbreak. It doesn’t care if you’re tired.

It keeps moving.

And you move with it.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was standing inside something solid — even if it floated.

The ship had rules. Watches. Rotations. Schedules. You showed up or someone else had to cover for you.

No one cared about popularity.

They cared about reliability.

It was the first place where I understood that competence can be louder than confidence.

And that felt good.

At night, when the water was black and endless, I would stand near the rail and feel the wind cut across my face.

The ocean doesn’t ask who you used to be.

It only asks if you’re steady now.

And I was.