Strange times or times for change? I have had a variety of questions every morning when I wake up since last March. At the beginning it was quite hard to understand what the term pandemic implied. I probably never thought I was going to live in the middle of that.
And well, many of us had to change the way we worked or do business, for better or for worse, while keeping our family life in balance without knowing what that would mean.
In mid March I still remember the day I went to work, after I knew our children’s school was closed, and I was just trying to figure out how COVID would impact our business or how we would continue doing business. It was always on our minds that our cloth diaper and delivery service would be considered an “essential business” since babies will still need diapers and I wouldn’t want to imagine any of our clients going crazy in the stores looking for diapers. I am just remembering the images of people acting nuts with shopping carts full of toilet paper. I never understood that!
Our diaper service was more open and active than ever. The way we were learning how to keep it going in the safest way for our clients and all our staff was a little scary. Luckily there was not much of a change, since our processes were already very safe with the highest standards of sanitation in the way we would process all our cloth diapers. Other worries started to come about, like clients losing their jobs, families getting sick, uncertainty in the economy. But we had to just keep pressing on.
And despite grey days full of fears and doubts, days like today still come, when I have a zoom class with all these families eager to learn about cloth diapers, showing their faces through the screen tired after a day of work and dealing with the last stages of pregnancy, which I remember could be exhausting, but they were there, many with their partners present to continue making a change in this word though using cloth diapers! After this class I forgot the bad feeling I had in the morning with a person not wanting to wear a mask!
Managing a family while running a small business-in a pandemic is not simple in the best of times. I couldn't stop thinking about how I was supposed to do all this without my kids at school. Luckily, my husband, a part time job as a teacher and part of the business, too, with my incredible sister-in-law and I came to a formal “quarantine-team-bubble”. Of course, nothing is perfect and our time for work is still very limited. But after I enjoy being with my kids, seeing them laugh and reading stories and talking about how the distance learning was today I don’t mind working at night or during crazy hours early in the morning.
Here we are with a divided society, with people raising their voices and people not letting others speak again. Mask wearing, opening businesses, opening schools, every person lives by their own rules, on the collective and moral side or on the most selfish one.
We have our ups and downs, but I still have hope. There is no hating 2020 in my heart. When I have the hardest time managing my feelings, fears, questions and anxiety I just remember my dear husband, my family, amazing staff and all our incredible clients. We are not alone. Pandemic, family life and work all swirled together like a social tornado, but I’m still loving it!
