Alyssa Leolani

We had just finished a long, grueling move from Los Angeles to Boise. It was a very challenging process to pack up our whole house in a few days, find a place to rent from afar, find appropriate programs for Jagger while living in a different state, and then make the long road trip with a huge U-Haul. What got me through the sleepless nights, the stressful planning and the ugly drive though was this thought that when we got to Boise, everything would be okay.

However, when we finally arrived in Boise, it felt like my balloon of high expectations popped. There was so much anticipation leading to this big amazing move but when it finally happened, there weren’t as many fireworks as I thought there would be. The same problems seemed to follow us here. My son was still autistic. We were still tight on money because of the therapies he needed, and I still needed to fight for him in terms of equal treatment. I found myself in the same boring routine of parks and play dates and trying to entertain two toddlers. I began to feel burnt out from life, and it affected my attitude of being a mom. I didn’t have any motivation to wake up and start my whole monotonous routine over again every single day. Happiness felt like it was just always right outside my grasp, and it felt pointless to try to reach anymore. I knew this was a dangerous mindset to maintain, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the rut I was in.

One day the phrase came to my mind.

Enjoy the journey.

I had heard this particular phrase so many times before, but this time it really struck me. I don’t know how or when it happened, but somewhere along the way I stopped being a journey person. I had completely become a destination person. Somewhere along the winding path of life, I stopped looking out the window at the scenery and instead started straining my eyes ahead to find my next futuristic destination. My happiness stopped existing in my travels and slowly became dependent on me getting somewhere. When this realization hit me, it felt like someone had splashed a cup of ice water in my face.

This isn’t me! This isn’t who I am! I’ve always been an optimistic, bubbly, happy person by nature. What happened to me?

I was determined to figure out when I had lost my ability to find happiness on the journey, and more importantly what I could do to fix it. I began to search the archives of my mind with the intent to find out when exactly my heart had changed. Figuratively it felt like I was hopping in my car and traveling back in time to revisit some past momentous stops on my journey, as if I always experienced the events of life while driving in a car on the road of mortality, in search of happiness.

First stop. Youthful Oomph.

I’m 16 years old, and I am driving in ripped jeans and a t-shirt with the windows down and my music blasting. The wind is blowing through my hair, and I’m laughing. I’ve got friends in the back seat, just enough change in my pocket for gas, and Rocket Summer is singing to us through the speakers. The excitement for the unknown creates an electric feeling in the air. The possibilities for the future are endless. I am broke and my fickle heart is unsure of where I’m going, but I am happy and present in the moment. I am effortlessly happy at this stage in life as I enjoy the company of good friends, year round summer nights, and a seemingly bottomless supply of youthful oomph.

Enjoying the journey seemed like it came so naturally to me at this point. Life was so simple at this phase. My heart aches for just a second. I miss being this effortlessly happy, unscathed, innocent girl. Man I would kill for some more oomph in my life right now!

Note to self: Find my oomph. Moving on.

Next Stop. A Trip to Siberia.

A decision to teach people about Jesus Christ, and a mission call to Novosibirsk Russia finds me driving in a parka down to my ankles and a fur hat. The scenery I am driving through is like a winter wonderland. It is white, crystal, and pure as far as the eye can see. Everything is new to my eyes, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. I crack the windows, and the freezing air hurts when I breathe it in, but at the same time refreshingly shocks my system and wakes me up. It is ice-cold outside but that doesn’t stop me from constantly getting out to talk to anyone walking by. I love these people. It is so warm in the car that I can’t help but smile through the dark nights. A Russian companion sits next to me talking away in a different language. As the car ride goes on, I begin to understand her more and more and then eventually speak back to her in Russian. After 18 months I am driving to the Trans Siberian Railway to go home to my family. I pass by countless people waving at me as I go, and for the first time in my life I feel at home somewhere other than the place I grew up. This is the roughest, hardest terrain I’ve driven through yet, but I’ve found a depth to my soul I didn’t know existed. On this particular stop I picked up purpose, humility, charity, and inner beauty (I say inner beauty because I also gained 30 pounds here and lost my tan…completely). Revisiting this place reminds me how happy I was even though I was fat, pale, and all I did was pray and serve people 24/7.

Service and prayers …Noted. Poyekalee!

Third Stop. Marriage.

I am in college now, and I have lost the extra 30 pounds I gained (thank goodness) and then some. This chapter of my life has me driving like a mad woman. Just when I begin accelerating and gaining speed towards my career goals, a suitor gets in the car. I brake hard. I hear what he has to say. He is handsome. Charming. I enjoy a goodnight kiss or two. I might even love him a little bit but my leg begins to spasm as my foot is dying to push that gas pedal. I tell him kindly that I’m not ready for marriage, and then when the door shuts, I put the pedal to the medal. I’m on my way out, see ya suck town! Nothing is going to hold me back!

Then another suitor jumps in the car.

Brakes. Halt. Speech. Door slam. Gas. Repeat. 5,000 times.

The soundtrack in the car is the alternating sounds of the engine and the sudden braking. Vroom, Screeech! Vroom, screeeech! Vroom, screech! I’m feeling a little nauseous revisiting this particular scene. I suddenly sympathize with how my mom must have felt, since she got the play by play for each encounter.

Then there is one attractive, athletic, magnetic, charismatic boy who gets in the car. He makes me laugh easier than any other, and makes me feel like I’m the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. My heart drops when he kisses me… but that leg spasm won’t go away! (Sigh). Well it was so nice to meet you. Marriage talk. Door slam. Just about to gas it when …wait a second… This boy is standing in front of my car with his arms folded across his chest challenging the direction I am headed. Oh my, the audacity, the nerve of this boy! I pause. I never noticed the fork in the road until now.

I start reasoning with myself. This boy has gumption. I like that. He could make an excellent navigator. Also I get tired on long car rides by myself, and he could take a turn driving… something tells me he won’t judge me for my road trip binges, my love for movie soundtracks, and my lack of bladder control. I don’t know if I will find anyone else who can put up with that. Sold! I roll down my window and holler at him to get in the car (not far from how we decided to get married in real life). Then together we go the opposite way I was headed.

We are so in love and for the first part of the road we travel, there is nothing but laughs, kisses, blue skies, and sunshine.

This is usually the part of the romantic movies I like to rewind over and over again. I want to pause it here and relish this feeling of warmth and adoration. I don’t want to watch this blissfully happy couple go through the storm up ahead. I plead with my mind to slow down for a second. Let’s just keep the car parked here for one more minute please… and yet the car drives on. I look one more time at our vivacious, youthful smiles, and then we proceed into the fog.

I send a mental reminder to myself quickly: Don’t forget about the man who stood in front of your car and altered your course. Remember him. He’s a good man.

And he’s gorgeous.

The Dreaded Next Stop. The Storm.

Up until this point, it was a pretty smooth drive for me. I had never experienced such tumultuous terrain until this stop.

First we add in one car seat. Then shortly after a second car seat. We look tired with dark bags under our eyes, and the start of gray hairs on my head. This section of the road is full of bumps and hidden pot holes that send us violently bouncing all over the place, unable to regain control over the car for a bit. There is grad school. This is the world of autism. On this part of the drive we pick up fatigue, stress, migraines, stomach ulcers, heartache, and tears. Our trunk can hardly close over the burdens and problems we have packed in it, and it feels like our car is moving at a snail’s pace underneath all the weight. There are no more longing gazes of adoration between the two of us.

We only stare straight ahead stone-faced trying to make it through the storm.

Pause. There it is. The moment I had been looking for. The moment when things changed. The moment I changed. It was this part of the journey here, right in the middle of the storm that I stopped looking out the window and my thought process changed from I’m so happy right now to I’ll be happy when grad school is done. I’ll be happy when we aren’t living in a cramped apartment in LA. I’ll be happy when we get paid more. I’ll be happy when Jagger can talk. Etc.

It was here that I started this vicious cycle of basing my happiness on arriving somewhere. I was trying to get to this elusive oasis, this lavish resort where all of my stresses and worries would melt away, but as the car continued to roll forward, I could see that even when I got to all of those stops, I still wasn’t happy.

It dawned on me that there is always going to be something to be unhappy about.

If it’s not the tiring days in toddlerville, it’s the heartache of unforeseen tragedies, the aching pains of getting older, an unanticipated setback in my physical or mental health, the sudden loss of a loved one, or the deafening silence of an empty nester house that comes too quickly.

Something told me that if I kept driving this way, I would arrive at the pearly white gates of Heaven only to get out of the car and say, “This is it?” I felt that if I didn’t acquire the skills to find beauty and happiness in this life, I definitely wouldn’t have the tools to recognize beauty and happiness in the next life.

Something had to change and quickly. I decided to take some of the lessons of the past and apply them to right now.

Oomph, service, prayers, and my husband is where I started.

Over time, these have become fail-proof solutions to get me through the hard times when I lack motivation and strength to move forward.

In Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin’s talk “Come What May and Love It”, he talks about how whenever he went through seasons of sadness and sorrow, his mother would always tell him this phrase.

Come what may and love it.

Elder Wirthlin goes on to say these profound statements.

“How can we love days that are filled with sorrow? We can’t- at least not in the moment. I don’t think my mother was suggesting that we suppress discouragement or deny the reality of pain. I don’t think she was suggesting that we smother unpleasant truths beneath a cloak of pretended happiness. But I do believe that the way we react to adversity can be a major factor in how happy and successful we can be in life. If we approach adversities wisely our hardest times can be times of greatest growth, which in turn can lead toward times of greatest happiness. “

(This talk is amazing, so light-hearted, humorous and uplifting. If you would like to read the whole thing, click here).

If you’re caught in the storm, keep moving forward. Every dark storm that impedes our journey and hinders your vision will in fact get you a little closer to meeting our Savior at the pearly white gates.