SAUGUS — Mike Maruzzi’s life changed forever in January of 1987.
Maruzzi, then an 18-year-old student at Saugus High School, crashed head-on into the boards while playing hockey at Salem State, suffering a spinal-cord injury that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down.
Now, with his new book, “Walking is Overrated,” Maruzzi wants to reciprocate the support he once received from friends, family, and complete strangers when he got hurt all those years ago. Maruzzi is hosting a book launch Tuesday at Kowloon’s outdoor patio from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and tickets cost $75.
“This book and this night is as much about me reciprocating for everything they have done to make my life what it is,” Maruzzi said.
He explained that knowing he had the mental strength to overcome a cataclysmic physical injury helped him persevere through other challenges in his life.
“When [my] physical challenges came up, I had a choice to either let those physical challenges and everything take advantage of me and take over my existence, or find a way through them,” Maruzzi said.
Maruzzi said 2022 was among the most challenging years of his life. He spent months in the hospital separated from his wife of eight years while a hurricane bared down on Fort Myers, Fla., where they live. During that time, he said he began to dwell on “all of the lousy things about being in my existence.”
Writing became an outlet and helped pull him out of that dark place. With the book complete, Maruzzi could think of no better way to launch a memoir than returning to Saugus.
“Walking is Overrated,” Maruzzi explained, isn’t about his injury, but rather a chronicle of his experiences afterward and a showcase of the mentality that one incident shouldn’t define an entire life.
“Hopefully anybody that reads this book can find a little bit of that mental process to look inside themselves and find their own strength to make that choice,” he said.
Maruzzi spent more than two decades as a math teacher at Saugus High School following his injury. He eventually retired to Florida, partially because he “can’t stand the cold weather,” and partially because the physical toll of an in-person job began to wear on him. Now, Maruzzi still teaches but does so remotely, working as an SAT and college-prep tutor.
Teaching in Saugus was a special experience, Maruzzi explained. At Saugus High, he was able to have an influence on an entire generation, including the kids of people he went through school with.
“This community has helped me to give me an opportunity to pursue what I wanted to and have a positive influence on a lot of lives, and just make my life worth living and worth living with purpose,” he said.
In his retirement, Maruzzi has taken up a larger role in advocacy for those with spinal-cord injuries, even participating in a “roll” on Capitol Hill.
“The internet has opened up an entire world for, especially, people in my condition,” Maruzzi explained. “Up until the internet, I may have known two, three, maybe four people that are in [a] chair and live in my condition.”
Now, he said, he knows people across the nation who have had similar life experiences.
“It’s made a big difference in my life and my job now is to make that expand to other people,” Maruzzi said.
