Two weeks.
Two weeks ago today (3/28/20), though I didn’t know it at the time, was the last day my studio was open to the public. At least for now. My hope (and it’s a very big hope) is that I’ll be able to open that door again soon.
(Has it really only been two weeks?)
I figured I’d reassess the situation after two weeks to see if I needed to stay closed longer. Well, here we are two weeks later, and the answer is yes, I do need to stay closed longer. How much longer? Oh, how I wish I knew! But honestly, I will stay closed (and home!) as long as I need to in order to stay safe and help keep my community, family, and friends as safe as I can.
At first I was able to jump right into working from home…that lasted about a day or two. I noticed my focus just wasn’t holding. I’m usually very good at focusing on big production days, and with all this time on my hands at home, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to stockpile inventory. I could have all kinds of things to bring to the studio and festivals once I could get back to “business as usual”!
But doubt crept in. Why am I doing this when my business has come to a standstill? How long will things be like this? Will my business survive it and will it ever look like it did before? I couldn’t just plow through these thoughts and feelings with production as usual. It’s like we’re all flying a bit blind right now. How do I move forward when I don’t know which direction to take? I needed a distraction.
After several days of finding various ways of distracting myself, I realized I wasn’t figuring out anything, I was just mentally running away.
I can’t run forever. I don’t even like running.
The reality of the current situation has really sunk in. There is uncertainty, doubt, worry, fear…but is there also hope?…an unseen opportunity? I feel like there could be.
I noticed that, more often than not, my distractions led me to do something creative. Art – I need to create. Something different – a “shiny new thing” to figure out. I need to focus on it to help me process everything that’s going on. I need to rediscover my purpose, to re-focus. Maybe this is my direction.
Then today it occurred to me. Do I want to look back on this time and realize all I did was curl in a ball and hide? Or do I want to look back and see something I can be proud of? That I picked myself up off the floor, took a deep breath, and straightened my back. That, though I may have had tears in my eyes and my steps were a bit slow and shaky, I still moved forward.
I choose to move forward.
I’m not going away, I’m just going to take a few deep breaths for a while.
Wishing you, very sincerely, all the best,
Jessica
