By Deanna Kirk – Special to the Navarro County Gazette
For those who may not know, after nearly two decades with our local print newspaper, I left in 2019 to open a shipping store – Goin’ Postal. Please pardon my rusty writing skills as I’ve not put them to use since then.
Yes, you really can start over in your 50s with a new career!
Of course the timing has not always been right on the mark. I doubt anyone ever thinks to themselves, “Hmm, I think I’ll start a new business mid-life just in time for a world-wide pandemic,” but that seems to be just what happened. In mid-March, when we learned about COVID-19 and all the ensuing panic, as a precautionary measure (and not realizing how long this would all drag on) we closed our not-even-open-a-year-yet store. For a month.
Finally, it seemed like we were going bananas from boredom, and decided we’d open it back up. We wore masks, not just for ourselves, but as a courtesy for our customers who have medical issues.
For six months we were fine. Went through lots and lots of hand soap, washing our hands constantly, wearing masks, sanitizing surfaces, pens, pin pads, doorknobs, etc.
Then the kids from the largest school district in the county went back to school. I don’t say this to place any blame on the school district, it’s simply the number of students, faculty, and staff are so much greater than in the small county districts the percentage of risk was higher no matter what precautions were taken. And there were lots and lots of precautions.
Anyway, one grandkid was back in school a week and boom, tested positive and next thing you know, her mom (who works with me at the store) had it too. We quickly made arrangements to close the store and clean from top to bottom. I got tested the same day, and a couple days later got a negative result. However, by the time the weekend was up, I was sick. Not as sick as I was in October 2009 with the swine flu, but sicker than I recall being with regular flu. The telltale sign was the loss of my sense of taste and smell. I still don’t have those back. And the fatigue just kept hanging on.
It’s odd how people act when you have COVID. Someone compared it to being a witch during the Salem witch hunts. “No matter what you do, don’t admit you have it, because people will act all crazy!”
Oddly enough, more than one neighbor in my ‘hood turned up with COVID while I was out with it. That seems odd, because I was not face to face with any of them. Just goes to show if you go to H-E-B, or Walmart, or church, or the funeral home – you never know where you may be exposed to it.
Outside of closing the 14-day quarantine duration, cleaning the place from top to bottom and taking every vitamin ever suggested to help prevent COVID, I don’t know what else we could have done to make things safer here. We still wear our masks, and still take all the necessary precautions.
We are happy to be back at work and seeing our customers/friends again. If we don’t have the same spring in our step we did before, give us a little time … we will get it back before you know it. We are so grateful to have been missed, and even more grateful for the prayers offered on our behalf.
And if you haven’t been to see us yet, come on by 1107 W. Seventh Ave. and see what Goin’ Postal can do for you!