What is that one thing that brings a smile to everyone who receives it? A gift! Today’s story is about the artsy dreamcatcher (quite literally) Jomcy Maria – a girl from Kochi.
Jomcy started the Joartness Instagram page when Instagram wasn’t even famous. Joartness is a creative platform where people can browse through and order unique gift items, home décor items, paper crafts, and their bestselling item–dreamcatcher!
Dreamcatcher Girl – Jomcy Maria
Jomcy handmades gifts like personalized embroidered dreamcatchers, save the date gifts, wedding gifts, and birthday gifts, among many others. She believes that the feeling one gets when bringing smiles to others’ faces is irreplaceable. Jomcy’s goal is to inspire people and help them recognize their dreams.
But how did this all start? Jomcy was in a regular 9-5 job and wanted to do something creative in her life. Something that others were not doing. Doing something uncommon interested her.
With this thought, Jomcy started an Instagram Page. Instagram wasn’t at a boom, nor was it a place to make money. Jomcy started with quotes and one-liners, which she wrote in calligraphy and shared on her page. She wrote those quotes on photographs and uploaded them to inspire people. It built her a small community, where she started receiving love and appreciation.
Soon, she started posting and sharing more of her work on this Instagram page over the weekends. She began posting images of her handmade items on the page and received orders and inquiries from friends and strangers– sometimes one, sometimes in bulk! All this was too exciting for Jomcy, and she became fully equipped with Joartness work during her free time.
Joartness started getting orders for dreamcatchers, home décor, and paper crafts. Positive customer reviews and good word of mouth further boosted her business. Later the page even began inspiring people. Many of her friends, too, started their businesses after seeing her page grow and receive appreciation to this extent.
Jomcy continued her job even when Joartness was getting too many orders monthly. She got married last year. After which, she started working full time for her creative page – Joartness.
It sounds like a sugary sweet, lovely start-up story, right? But life isn’t a bed of roses. Indeed, it wasn’t for Jomcy. Around four years back, doctors diagnosed her with one of the rarest diseases, ITP or the Immune thrombocytopenic purpura. Jomcy was only 25 years of age.
Platelets work to keep people immune and help in clotting blood. But in this disease, the body’s immune system destroys the body’s platelets. There is no prescribed medicine for the disease, and it all depends on person to person.
Thus, doctors used the trial-and-error method for her treatment. She had to take new medications every three months – most of them wouldn’t work. But there was no option. She had to face the side effects of the medication too. And then, try to take other medicines., she was admitted into ICU several times. Her life journey became a roller coaster, and she was forced to sit on it. That was a challenging time for her in life. It was pretty tough to fight a disease that had no medication. Still, she knew she could do it and would come out of it – victorious!
Even though she knew she could fight with it, it was challenging to manage the disease on a day-to-day basis. “With lots of side-effects, I had to think about the future. Of course, even people without a medical condition in their lives worry about their future. And with this condition, I was thinking lots of things,” she said. For approximately 1.5 years, she tried different medicines. In the end, one treatment worked and helped her. She had to continue taking that medicine.
After almost 1.5 – 2 years, her platelets were stable. However, they remained stable for only two years, and then the disease relapsed. Which again resulted in her getting admitted to ICU for treatment. This happened many times, but Jomcy kept going. Jomcy realized she needed to get her mind diverted. This was when she started uploading quotes and motivational posts on her Instagram and came up with the Joartness page.
“All these things helped me a lot to come out of my disease. It boosted my mind and killed my hard times. Currently, too, I’m far away from the stable state of platelets. The talent I had helped me when I struggled through hard times. So, when I tried to give some of my time to it, I felt like I was doing something productive. It felt like I didn’t have any medical issues. People should follow their passion through their talent, and it will help them pass through hard times and grow even better than doing a regular job,” Jomcy said.
She works as a one-person army. Managing the Joartness business includes taking orders, customizations, customer care, sending out orders, researching, packing the orders, executing the tasks, assorting material, maintaining the social media, and more. It is she – and only her who manages it all. The secret of Jomcy’s never-ending list of happy customers is that Jomcy always goes the extra mile and puts immense effort into each of her orders. She doesn’t stop until she is satisfied with the outcome.
Jomcy loves the magic of dream catchers. Jomcy says, “There is a special kind of magnetic magic effect when dream catchers surround someone. I believe in that magic and did so, even in the initial days when I started.”
Despite all her struggles, challenges, and trysts with life, the dreamcatcher girl truly and quite aptly wishes to help others recognize and follow their dreams Jomcy believes that the women in India must be given an opportunity to hone their skills, grow and become independent. Giving inspiration and a platform to women in rural areas is one of her life-long dreams she wishes to accomplish someday.
Jomcy truly believes and has personally experienced that despite all hardships and struggles, if one sticks to their vision and dreams, they can indeed achieve them one day. Such is the magic, vision, and ambition of the dreamcatcher girl – Jomcy Maria!
Like us on FB, if you find our content interesting: https://www.facebook.com/hatkestoryofficial/
Do you have an interesting incident or experience to share with the world? Write to us, and together we can discuss how to weave your story and present it to the world. Would you mind sending us your story?