How a fire-drill changed my outlook on life

via Flickr: thebutcherbaker

2am and there was a fire in my downtown San Francisco apartment complex. With alarms blaring, I jumped out of bed, grabbed some cash, my wallet, stuffed everything in a laptop bag and hiked down the dozen stories with my lethargic apartment mates.

The massive complex emptied in to the street and adjacent alley way. Cigarettes lit up and neighbors, who never once looked twice at one another, began to chat in their pajamas.

While I was staring at the firemen queuing in the building, I heard a voice to my right. At first I didn’t notice her until she tapped my side. Her name (for this discussion) is Maya.

Maya emmigrated from Italy to study and she taught me a lesson which has changed way I view the world and live my life.

Rewind two years earlier — Maya was roaring through the streets of Florence, Italy with her boyfriend on his Ducati. After turning down an alleyway, they hit a bump on a cobblestone road. She was launched forward off the bike and he ran over her lower back.

Moments prior she may have been smiling under a warm sun, in love, imagining a promising career, family dinners, children, dancing, and a bright future. She woke to bright lights in a hospital where she would reside for the following year to recover from her spinal injury. Soon after her admission to the hospital, her long-term boyfriend would leave her as she stated: “From a combination of guilt and an inability to accept the change.” As only she could say, “but I can’t blame him. He couldn’t forgive himself and I didn’t know how to make him let go.”

Her ability to spin everything positively was spectacular.

Returning to the fire-drill — A gregarious Italian girl in a wheelchair started a conversation with me and before we filed back in, we exchanged information and kept our conversation going.

Her courage was inspirational to me and, subsequently, to anyone who heard her story.

A simple testament to her courage was the fact that she was living alone in San Francisco after her injury. She left her language, family and friends to pursue her dream of design. After leaving the hospital, she cold called a well-known design program. She networked her way to a professor who, after some persuasion, allowed her to come and study. In addition to studying design, she was taking English so she could understand the materials, working a job at a local Italian restaurant in the Mission District and dealing with a 24/7 nervous system injury which confined her to a wheel chair and caused her constant physical pain.

So if you’re with me: Italian girl is in love with guy; girl becomes paralyzed from the waist down; guy leaves girl; girl leaves everything she knows behind; learns a new language; studies a new trade; and works to pay her own way in one of them most expensive cities in the world.

We hear people say “life’s about change” and “we can only control how we react to the world” but, if you’re anything like me, you may have failed to internalize what that means.

Although we can’t constantly live in fear of some terrible twist to our life’s story, we should realize that life’s going to inject some randomness and that every assumption we make — even the most basic “will I be able to walk, stand or see” may not hold to a later date.

In my post-Maya world, the threat of drastic change came to mean that I should stop trying to predict how every decision will pan out in the long term and focus on enjoying every moment.

As for Maya, she continues to thrive in San Francisco. If you live or work in SoMa, you’ve probably seen her rolling down the streets. You’ll know you’ve seen her when you meet eyes and you can’t help but smile.