Remembering Helene... and Everything Else.

Today is October 1^st 2026.

Saturday night, I sat at my desk three hours after closing, after working two locations in one day, after spending all week worrying about occupancy and social media and how I was going to lease apartments, and how I had failed to make a resident happy that day, and I cried.

I called my husband and sobbed, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me; I’m just so overwhelmed.”

To quote a cliché, that was the understatement of the century.

Devin had to come to the office and coax me out. I could not leave my seat. I could barely remember the alarm code once he finally got me on my feet. He ordered us barbecue for dinner. I ate collard greens. They were salty, the way I like. I remember nothing else until texting my dad about Christmas the following afternoon. According to Devin, I had complained that the fridge was not full of fruit salad. I had done no cleaning but worried about it endlessly. I had attempted to do homework but instead burst into tears, because on Sunday, September 27^th, I could not do anything but cry.

“How are you all doing?” my dad texted back.

I stared at my phone, body aching cause all I had done that day was cry and complain about fruit salad.

“That’s a subjective question, but we’re okay, I guess.” I wrote.

That was not a satisfactory answer, based on the emoji he sent back.

I told him I was having an emotional crisis, but we were fed and had a roof and therefore fine. I was, in fact, not fine, but like I said: subjective.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I stared at my phone again. I cried again. It’s been a long time since anyone asked me that. I can’t remember the last time anyone asked me that, actually. But I also don’t remember hating my fridge for not having fruit salad exclusively. So…

I wrote back, eventually, that it was hard to explain everything because I’ve been stuffing myself like a Thanksgiving turkey full of gunpowder for the last two years. I felt as though I had done nothing but survive and attempt to change things in my life as rapidly as possible, and I am struggling to create a life I am happy with. I want to write. I do not want to file evictions and get yelled at for things like curtains on balconies and broken elevators. It is empty.

I am empty.

And I have spent two years trying to fill an emptiness with a definition of success that is never big enough for me because life has to mean something, and it can’t be cleaning, evictions, fruit salad, and elevators.

“It’s tough to sit with emptiness when you’ve been in survival mode,” he said, among other things. “Make sure you give yourself credit for making it through the struggle.”

I did not write back. I still haven’t. Because I didn’t know what to say. Not until this morning, as I woke up to the sounds of sirens, head aching, heart racing. I opened the blinds in our new apartment and looked out at Blue Ridge. At the fog and the quiet. There, I started to remember.

I remembered sitting on the floor with Devin, watching trees snap. I remember watching the mud water run closer and closer to the building. I remember the panic, wondering if the land being developed up the mountain would slide onto us. I remember waiting for the river our road turned into to recede before the chainsaws started blaring to cut us out. I remember taking the truck down 240 and watching first responders pull bodies up from the overpass and the dirt-brown water of the Swannanoa River swallowing the U-Haul we drove by every single day. I remember saying to Devin, “There’s nothing left.”

I cried when we got home.

I remember putting all of our food in a box and counting how many days it would last; I remember hearing the man on the radio cry. He had barely made it to the station and had no idea if any of his family or his co-workers were alive. I remember using our last five miles on my car to hunt for gas and discussing how far we’d have to push it if it burnt out. I remember having to cross over the River Arts District to get to the only gas we could find. I remember how whole buildings were gone.

I cried.

I remember how Devin cried after seeing two men in a knife fight over water and how guilty he felt for not stopping to help because all he could think about was getting back home to me. I remember crying, using a bottle of water to brush the mats out of my hair because it felt selfish.  I remember making a choice to leave and hoping we had enough gas to get to my mom's. I remember the sound of the toilet flushing in a McDonald's somewhere outside Durham and how pretty a sound that was. I remember how good it felt to shower after weeks of filth.

I remember coming back.

I remember giving blood because it was the only thing I could do that was helpful. I remember listening to everyone's story, at varying degrees of horror, and thinking how lucky we were. I remember walking the banks and finding clothes, backpacks, cars, and other signs of life that were washed away.

I remember forgetting it was October and Halloween was coming. We still didn’t have clean water. I remember getting my honors society plaque in the mail before getting clean water. I remember hating East Asheville. I remember who was willing to let us shower when they got water back and who helped us find potable water. I remember how far that grace extended when other people had power and water for weeks, and we didn’t, even though it was November. I remember getting clean running water back on Thanksgiving Day and how thankful I was for that.

I remember getting a new job. Southside felt like a saving grace after months of shit, shit, and more shit. I remember the pressure I put on myself to be good at that job at all costs. After all, I had to get out of East Asheville because I could not look at it anymore without crying. I remember 2025 being a better year and things feeling normal again.

I remember my grandmother dying last November, and Jacksonville, and watching that white coffin go into the dirt brown ground and hating the ground the way I hated the water. I remember going to Denver on New Year's Eve and watching my sister-in-law watch fireworks from her hospital room on the sixth floor, while I watched her slowly die. I remember hating the sky as much as I hated the water and the ground. I remember watching Devin cry over death again. I remember hugging Alie for the last time and promising her I would take care of her brother.

I remember getting so mad at residents when I got home for complaining about countertops and noise. I remember how the job that was my saving grace started to destroy me. I remember thinking about leaving Asheville and almost doing it. I remember my regional manager asking me, “Do you want to give it a try somewhere else?”

I remember transferring and moving to South Asheville and how happy that made Devin, and how even though I still have trouble looking at this city, I was happy with that because I promised Alie I would take care of him. I remember every sunrise in this apartment and how the foggy mornings make me sad.

I crave the sun but cannot stand in it happily.

I remember filling out my petition to graduate a few weeks ago and thinking, “it’s almost over.”

But it is never over.

It’s one long string of memory, and today I woke up on October 1^st, 2026, and remembered that Sunday was the two-year anniversary of the day Helene came to Asheville. And I remembered why it feels so heavy to make the most out of the life I have.

I remember death and water and dirt and sky. And death.

And I cried.

Gripping his coffee tight and looking over the mountains, Devin said, “I think this time of year will always be hard for us.”

I agreed.

I still haven’t texted my dad back. I don’t know what to say (and if you’re reading this, sorry). I know that he’s right. I have to give myself credit for making it through the struggle. But that doesn’t feel like enough.

I don’t know if anything will ever feel like enough.

I don’t remember fruit salad. But I remember everything else.