Working and Living thru Pandemic

I know I haven't posted a blog since for ever so long ago.  We all have been living in such crazy anxious time almost a year now.  We may have lost someone because of Covid-19, we may know someone who lost their loved one, or may know someone who survived from it but still fighting with the aftereffect. I personally know quite a few who have lost their loved ones and also am very concerned about the social issues spiking up, which may not be directly because of Covid-19, but may be related because it's been affecting people economically, socially, and mentally for such a long time. It seems that communication is possible without physically present, but when that becomes the only way to communicate, I think we lose sense of social attachment to things in a way.  Not only not seeing someone and meeting people were creating this emptiness inside of me, but also not being able to experience what had been normal was making it so difficult for me to feel like a person. It was specially difficult during the adjusting first three months, April, May and beginning of June for me to stay home with two little children until their preschool reopened here in Osaka.  Two boys under age of 3 year-old at that time made it clear that I would not be able to keep them indoor the whole time from day 1. So I took them to parks every single day. They loved it. I tried to keep them have normal days as much as possible. I couldn't work but my husband was working from home as usual. And every now and then I would receive orders, I worked while kids napped.  We are such adoptable creatures and everything starts to feel normal somewhat after certain amount of time. I heard many people preferred the slow-paced life, and lot of people focused on their surroundings to make it comfortable for their new indoor living life style. I think these are a few positive things came out of the hard time we were in. We needed to stop and think what was necessary and what may be was not. I had lot of these moments watching kids playing with sand at a park and asking myself questions; what makes us happy? How do I want to work? At that time, I was pretty bombed by the first Japanese pop up event cancelled followed by cancellations on many international orders due to the massive delay on air shipment. Those things were certainly hard as a business, but that did not necessarily kill my passion for making jewelry. I always felt like life was too short to be pessimistic and I also realized worrying about things that are beyond my capability of controlling makes no difference so it was easy for me to let go off things that were out of my control.  Then I realized what I could let go could really be gone and I would be fine. With best luck that I had a healthy family, financial stability, home to go back to, and food to eat, I at least stopped worrying about my work during the time I was with my kids. I made peace with myself telling customers beforehand estimate shipping time when someone wanted to order something even though more than half the time it sent customers away.  Needless to say, it was pretty hard to put that in front of the customers as I hate to be a party sh***er, but as I said earlier, we are such adoptable creatures, I started to almost feel proud to be honest and expected the customers to end the conversation as soon as I said how long it may take for the order to arrive to the customers.  Now, this may not work as a business so I should be getting around to it, but with my husband being able to work and I was fortunate enough to take this time to slow down and focus on kids really helped me understand how little I could do and how much I could still do as a jewelry designer.  At least I got that anxiety set aside relatively sooner, and yet I couldn't help myself but clinging to the old days. I never could let go off that hope one day we would be back to normal and come together again.

As the vaccines coming to more people, we are moving towards the end of this dark tunnel.  We may be carrying all the issues, maybe if not more than when we started going into this tunnel, but whether we could solve all of it or not, there have to be reasons why these problems surfaced.

To end this blog post, I would like to introduce some items that are beautiful, and delightful and perfect for Zoom meetings and mask-wearing days.

These raw emerald apatite stud earrings brighten up your face and make great accent to your style with the beautiful teal color. The color is truly beautiful and gives sophisticated look.

 And these Herkimer diamond stud earrings give just right amount of sparkle. These earrings are one of a kind and are the timeless.

It's always important to remember to treat yourself and cheer yourself up. I am a strong believer that the jewelry can make you feel better about yourself.

Thanks for reading,

xoxo

Rie