MARATHON, Fla. — Until Sunday, I had been living out of a gym bag for nearly three weeks.

I left off in my last column about evacuating to upper Florida and how fearful I was of Category 4 Hurricane Irma making landfall in the Florida Keys where I live.

What I’ve been through since Sept. 5 cannot fit in this column. My brain has been so overloaded and there are so many words I could use to describe all the things that have happened in the days post-Irma. This is a short version.

Sept. 11, the day after the storm, my boyfriend and I made our way into the Keys with enough food and water to last a while and some idea of what we were in for. The look on the officer’s face at the first checkpoint made it all clear.

“Good luck,” she said. That moment in time feels like it was years ago.

Cellphone service lasted about 30 miles south into the islands and cut off just before arriving to our Marathon homes.

After assessing the 3-foot water line in my boyfriend’s condo and sloshing through saltwater in the living room, we went to my place.

I’m happy to report my apartment, a small loft, is in good condition. No one knows how the wooden structure survived. Even the wind chime I left outside made it through 100-mph plus winds. I tossed a lot of things to the curb out of necessity and to make room. After five days of rotting in the heat, the refrigerator smelled worse than anything I can describe. Imagine the thousands of others here that sat for longer in houses only touched by saltwater in the last two weeks.

We slept outside that first night, watching as military planes landed and took off at the airport near my place. With no electricity, the only light in all of town was that from places running on generators. Night after night, no one but military personnel and police roamed the streets looking for looters.

We walked through the resort behind my apartment as all the alarms inside the condos went off, us being the only ones around to hear them. The sound still rings in my ears. The pool, like many I’d see in the coming days, was black. The leaves and branches on a beautiful orange bougainvillea tree where I took a photo of my good friend Liz in early summer were blown off, the trunk dark brown. I learned the high winds simply blew the chloroform out of all the leaves.

After the first night, we didn’t sleep outside anymore thanks to a friend of ours who offered us a place to stay in a nearby island neighborhood called Key Colony Beach. With the heat index near 100 degrees, my apartment was sweltering and unlivable. Morning, noon and night I searched for clothes in the dark with the light of my cellphone since the storm shutters still blocked out sunlight. We had a little air conditioning and a few of the rooms were lit thanks to a generator.

At night in Key Colony, I started to realize the heavy police and military presence when men with machine guns guarded the main causeway. We made dinner with the windows open as tanks rolled by.

I went to Marathon City Hall and got to work trying to get any information possible. I spent many 12-hour work days just trying, and learning. That’s why I am a reporter and that’s why I wanted to get back into the Keys as fast as possible. Unfortunately, without cellphone service, no one could get any information out for about three days. City staff let me use a satellite phone in the parking lot and I began to fully appreciate service after a long time searching for any connection possible in the hot sun. Remember when, in the old days, you’d stand by a window or outside to get a few bars and make a call? It was like that, but worse. No electricity, limited access to running water, no cellphone service and no Internet made life and work difficult. We still do not have cable, but that, like many things is the least of our concerns.

I mentioned in my last column the massive palm tree outside my door with initials carved into it. She took a beating, but stands proudly as one of the tallest left in the neighborhood.

My car was not so lucky. The saltwater flood picked it up and turned it around 180 degrees, then dumped it in some weeds. It was time for a new one.

Needless to say, all of this has made me appreciate so much. It has been a reflection on past selfishness. It has taught me material possessions have no true value after soaking in saltwater. It has taught me to appreciate a normal day.

What gets me is being in places that will never be the same again, these places that felt like home and are now a bit unfamiliar.

I’m getting used to it though. After a while, you put emotions aside and keep focusing on what good tomorrow might bring.

Irma brought with her much tragedy, but she also brought many good things — like friendships that will last a lifetime, and strength we never knew we had.

Overall, the experience has been a lesson in patience, kindness and most of all endurance. Each day, there is progress and I feel if I can make it through this, I can make it through anything.