Making The Best of It

Two weeks. This whole ordeal was originally meant to last two weeks. As I am writing this, we are slowly approaching the anniversary of the first lockdown.

I remember how excited I was to have a little vacation. No more school — nor working at my small part-time job that I contemplated quitting several times a day — for a whole two weeks. The announcement came the same day of an important Philosophy exam. The entire class had hoped that it would be cancelled that Friday afternoon, but it went forward as plan, to our bitter disappointment. I remember crossing paths with one of my teachers on my way out. “See you in two weeks!” I had said. Little did we know…

Life wasn’t the same after that and I fear our regular routines (which seem like a distant memory) won’t be returning for a little while still. Little did I know that two weeks would turn into a month, then two, then four…

In all honesty, this pandemic hasn’t hit me as hard as most people. I hate to take advantage of a bad situation, but it kind of came as a blessing. I had reached a point in my life when I believed that I had it all figured out. I had a healthy relationship, a great group of friends, a job that, in spite of making me cuss once in a while, brought in a decent amount of money. I was content and I see now that I needed to be shaken up. I needed something that would make me question what I really wanted in life.

Firstly, I realized that my part-time job had been a great source of frustration and stress for me. It had prevented me from enjoying my Sundays and was the main factor of whether or not I was going to have a good day. As the opening date for stores continued to be pushed back, I realized how much mental health and incite had improved. I realized that a scheduled 9 to 5 job was the thing I dreaded the most for my future.

So, what else could I do? I’ve always had a passion for art, in particular drawing, which I’ve been doing as a hobby for years. I consider myself relatively talented — not to sound too vain —, but I had always convinced myself (and been told on several occasions) that a career in the arts was unstable and risky. For most of high-school, my main career motivation was to find a job that provided a good income. However, having so much free time to contemplate my life during the lockdown, I realized that that was no longer my priority.

So, I started out slow. I had created an instagram page for my work the previous summer (oh, the oblivious bliss) and decided I would start improving my portfolio there. I had done tattoo designs before, but felt that it was a good time to start it up again and try to make a little extra cash. It worked well for the first few months and into summer of 2020. It also pushed me to do the thing that worried me the most: quitting my job, that I had held for almost two years. When it was announced that the stores would open again in late May, I gave my two week notice and it was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Thankfully, I had money from the Covid Relief to fall back on, which allowed me to spend the entire summer working on commissioned works and paintings. I actually gained a decent amount of money doing this. Well, decent in my student revenue standards.

I had planned to find another part-time job when fall rolled around. However, the idea of working another dreadful customer service job nearly drove me mad. So, I had an ultimatum: sacrifice my mental well-being in order to be financially stable, or find a brilliant idea and work hard to make a living out of it.

I chose the latter. I started a business instagram page (@blairdesignsco, if you’re curious) to sell some poster prints of my work. However, I didn’t get the success I had hoped for. Having a small social media audience to begin with, it wasn’t easy gaining new followers. I’m not ashamed to say that a lot of my sales have been from family and friends, even though I wished that I could attract some outside buyers.

As this pandemic seems to drag on indefinitely, my main focus in this new — and hopefully better — year, is to grow my little business in hopes to achieving my dream of living the way I f-ing want.

Have you managed to make the best of a bad situation?

(Image source: Burst by Sarah Pflug)