It's corona time!

In early January, I took my eight-year-old's temperature.
"How much is it?"
"38.8. Luka, you are sabotaging me."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I just started working again after your fractures and surgeries and already you're back...."
"How far is China?"
"Excuse me? Far away, why?"
"The Corona virus is in China"
"Come on Luka, don't be a fool, you don't have the coronavirus"
Later that day, my dad calls me.
"I hear Luka thinks he has corona?"
"Yes, hahahaha"
"How silly that kid is, what a corona, how can he think of such things, ha ha ha"

After 10 days, I'm lying in the corner with a fever and my little germ carrier asks me -
Mom, did you feel bad before you ate that Wok from Chinese yesterday???
Lol, I don't have corona!!!!

After recovering from a virus, not corona, I'm returning to the salon. I opened the salon in a hurry, without a single client, three days BEFORE the Russian volume training. Although I've always been a hasty person and I go head over heels, this decision cost me a lot of nerves and at this moment I'm finally starting to really work and I'm reaching the stage where eyelashes are really funding me, and not me funding them as a rather expensive hobby. Everything has finally fallen into place, I've met a couple of wonderful women, I'm getting ready for the Lash challenge.

Mom, do you know that there is corona in Italy???
Luka, where did you get this information?
I was watching my grandfather's diary. Italy is right here near us.
You won't get corona, Luka, we won't go to Italy.
Buy me something to disinfect my hands, I heard that your hands have to be clean all the time!
Where did you hear that, Luka???
Well, on the Diary!!!!

Maaaaaam, corona is in Croatia!!!!
After I calmed down the child by buying him ice cream and another dose of hand sanitizer for the first time, I really wondered what would happen to our business. How dangerous it is when I'm alone with my thoughts, I immediately asked the Kallos group. We consoled each other that we are simply an industry that cannot fail because women have simply always wanted to be beautiful. I continued to work and at the same time prepared for the Challenge.

As the number of infected people increases, trade fairs are being canceled. I ask the group if they'll cancel our Lash Challenge. We collectively hope they won't. I decide not to think about something I can't influence. I'm going to try on a dress for the Challenge dinner. Hmm. I should lose three kilos if that's it. Starting tomorrow, I'll watch what I eat.

The next day, after I watched what I ate for a couple of hours, information was published that the Challenge was cancelled. I open Milka, the 300g one, clearly, in these doses it works as an antidepressant.
As the number of patients grew, I don't even have time to think about the Challenge anymore, the number is growing, children don't go to school anymore, everything is becoming real and something that is happening really to us and not somewhere far away, and I'm thinking about what to do with the salon.
To start with, I immediately cancel the pregnant woman and the girl who falls into the risk group. The next moment, I explain to the girls that the distance between us cannot be the recommended meter and I give them the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they want to keep the appointment. Then I cancel all the appointments myself, only to have the headquarters make a decision a few days later that we are prohibited from working.

The next few days are in chaos. I'm not working. The kids aren't in school. They're in chaos too, and the School for Life system is in chaos. I'm back to questioning my decisions and I'm back in the "What did I need this for?" phase. Tristogram Milka is no longer a sufficient dose for me, so I'm mostly eating non-stop.
There is no good enough time for your salon to close due to a pandemic, but if I had to single out one of the worst, I would say that it closed at the worst possible time. At the beginning of the business and at the same time when the business is finally in an upward phase. I'm nervous, depressed, so when I'm in pain I don't care about everything. Phases change every hour. I put together regimes in my head - opening a salon, pneumonia, Luka's two operations, a virus, then a pandemic. Is it possible? I'm a little depressed, I'm laughing hysterically when I think about it. Considering that, as I have already said, in difficult moments, light notes come to mind, I find myself in the lyrics "every once in a while in life, it's only my looom" and "someone cursed me".
I delete all the groups from which proposals for measures to save entrepreneurs pop up from social networks because they annoy me. I don't believe in them. After all, I'm thinking of closing everything and giving up on everything. But I have a Lash challenge. And what will I write about in the group if I'm not an eyelash girl anymore.

Depression and worries kept me going until Sunday, March 22nd.
Since I fell asleep watching TV, I was woken up by the sound of the kitchen shaking at around 6:20 am. I opened my eyes and in a split second it crossed my mind that everything was actually shaking with a terrible sound. Explosion? Earthquake? What are you doing now??? Since the geological technician in me died at that moment, I ran out of the house with the kids. I'm standing outside in my pajamas, during the pandemic, Zagreb was apparently hit by a strong earthquake and it's snowing all over us. Yesterday it was almost 20 degrees, now it's snowing during the pandemic???

After a moment where you feel completely helpless because nature has attacked you and you can't fight it, you can only hope that it will show enough mercy, there is no more corona. How small you are, man! There are no more bills, no more cash registers, no more taxes, there is nothing left that can't be solved. Maybe I'll open a salon. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll have to ask my dad to save me. Maybe I won't do any of that. Maybe I'll fail. Anything is possible. I'm alive and well now, anything is possible. You can fight against all of that!

After things, including the ground beneath Zagreb, calmed down, I decided not to wait for the quarantine to end, I will learn to live in quarantine. First, I cut out food as a comfort. Since I have six kilos to lose for that Challenge dress, I arrange online training sessions with a colleague who is in the same psychophysical state. We call each other on video calls and motivate each other that way, because neither of us will give up first 😅
I'm getting my own eyelashes done (that's as advisable as running outside during an earthquake).
I apply eyelashes to cups. I apply eyelashes to all the stuffed animals that have eyes and the kids didn't hide them from me. I'll paint the walls in the salon. I take care of my soul, hair, skin, I kill hair. I watch series. I study fractions. I watch webinars. I zoom in on lash sets on Instagram. I cook with the kids. I do everything I'll miss when women with a lack of eyelashes and excess eyebrows come out of quarantine!

Because "This too shall pass", and when it does, make sure you welcome your clients mentally and physically ready and cheerful, and that if you have a dress for the Challenge, you can fit into it 😉

Xx

Nina M.