As an online business owner in Cornwall, I have been riding the Coronacoaster with my eyes closed since March of this year.
I’m just going to put it out there and say 2020 has been a giant heap of stinking horse shit. When I look back at photos from a NYE party in 2019 where I was obnoxiously and loudly shouting ‘2020 VISION, BABY!’ to anyone patient enough to listen, I feel like a massive fraud. What the hell did we know then?
I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
Whatever business you are in, wherever in the world you live, the chances are you have found 2020 to be an uphill struggle. Many of us have had a very difficult time, worrying about loved ones or coping with family members or friends struck down by COVID-19. Some of us have crumbled due to mounting pressures from various directions and having to learn overnight how to homeschool our children while still trying to hang on to our jobs and businesses. We’ve had to cope with our children’s questions and fears, and try to make sense of what the bloody hell is going on in the world right now.
Online business in Cornwall: the impact of COVID-19
Running my own online business, I was surprised at the lack of support for company directors who are self-employed. The self-employment support scheme didn’t include company directors and we did not qualify for the furlough scheme. We seemed to slip through the net until, finally, Rishi announced grants were available for limited companies to apply for, which we then did.
When the initial UK lockdown was announced and many people were immediately furloughed until further notice, I made the quick, naive judgement that it wouldn’t affect me because I run my own online business and was still able to show up for work. I called the shots in my business with my sister and we were planning on operating our business as normal. Since my husband is a wedding photographer and was inevitably hit with a huge blow due to all weddings being cancelled for the foreseeable, it meant that he was able to take control of Zachary’s homeschooling during the week, and bloody good he was as it, too.
We decided that I would keep working and he would cover childcare. So, off I went to work (into my bedroom because our office was closed), opened my emails and slowly started to see what impact COVID-19 was having on the fashion industry. Warehouses were closing, production was stopping, our clients were furloughed and could not be contacted, many of the fashion brands stopped online trading and, without exception, all high-street stores were shut.
Oh. So running an online business with full control still didn’t mean that I would be able to carry on as normal. But surely self-employment gives you full power over your destiny? Well, not always. I hadn’t considered that in order for us to continue running our business, we were relying on our clients to carry on running their businesses and, of course, not many of them were. That said, we still managed to keep busy with some client work we had coming in as well as working on other areas of our business.
Looking through the rear-view mirror
It feels like 2020 has been a transformational year for us all. Many of us described lockdown as an opportunity to slow down our pace of life. Some of us really enjoyed the extra family time and a less-pressured lifestyle. But, no matter how much I was certainly enjoying this, the overriding sense of fear and worry meant that it didn’t feel like a holiday or a break. It felt like we had all pressed the pause button while the world turned itself upside down and we had to just wait and see where everything would land.
I worked from home throughout lockdown and during the summer, with the odd interruption of a five-year-old running in and telling me that he had just planted carrots seeds in the garden, or that the tomatoes were starting to turn red. There were many things I felt I got wrong during lockdown but I am proud of the way my husband and I protected Zachary from all the worry. For him, it was a holiday and he didn’t have a care in the world, other than wanting to be sure he would get a chocolate coin if he ate all his dinner. He accepted “the germs” as a concept but without overly worrying about them, and he usually does have a tendency to worry about things.
I also managed to get in the sea a few times and have a dip which felt very therapeutic. There’s something so comforting about the sea: no matter what life throws at you, the one thing you can rely on is the certainty of tides. When I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed, I really try to remind myself of this and I think this is one of the reasons why I relied on sea swimming such a lot during lockdown.
Wave jumping in the Atlantic Ocean
Running an online business also meant that I could move my office around a little during the spring and summer months. Before travel was banned during lockdown, I would sometimes take my laptop in the van and sit by the sea to work, just to mix things up a bit. I also managed to find the time to work on some song recordings, something I really enjoy but rarely have time for.
Running my online business in Cornwall: the future
It’s now September 2020 and business has returned to normal for Siblinc; we are working with the same clients again and things are picking up but the impact of this year is likely to affect next year’s business, and possibly the year after that, too. Since fashion is a cyclical business, production teams should have been designing and manufacturing Spring/Summer 2021 and Autumn/Winter 2021 collections during the summer and, of course, this hasn’t happened as planned.
It remains to be seen what this will mean for our cashflow next year and the year after but I know we will be fine, either way. I’ve always been an advocate for just figuring things out, playing things by ear and feeling confident that things will just sort themselves out in the end.
Human resilience and endurance
Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.
I have heard many people recalling their lockdown experiences and how they felt at the time. But when I remember lockdown, I actually can’t recall much about it except the things I have already shared on this post. Being told we could only exercise once a day feels like a lifetime ago. It’s all a bit of a blur. I think this just shows how resilient we all are: at the time, I am sure we could never have imagined forgetting what it was like living in lockdown but I have certainly forgotten much of it. The human brain is resilient. We, as a species, are resilient and adapt better than we perhaps may think.
If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is certain, the world can change in a heartbeat and endurance is absolutely vital. I think we have all been tested and have learnt the art of endurance, more so than we have ever had to before. If we can survive 2020 and come out of it relatively unscathed, surely we can handle whatever life throws at us?
