Why your mental-health need friends like John in 'Happiest Season'
We made it to the end! And of course it’s so important to save the best for last!
John. John. Shining, amazing, wonderful John. You just take the cake on being human and showing UP for your people and you have the most perfect eyebrows. You have so much to teach us…like how to track friends because friends don’t let friends go to their partner's parents house alone without any backup.
John is beloved for so many reasons and it’s not hard to see why you and I and basically everyone needs him to be their best friend. He’s spectacular, no questions asked.
My therapist’s eye caught: Your mental-health needs good friends.
Why they’re important: Wholehearted friendship is a way too overlooked part of mental-health. We need friends who know how to say they are wrong.
What we can takeaway: We all need our own version of John to support us along the way.
I have a hunch y’all. John embodies comfort. He seems so comfortable in his skin, comfortable being a mess, comfortable not taking himself too seriously comfortable being exactly who he is. The very things that he embodies so endearingly are the very things so many of us long for as well.
We love him because he has what we want.
We want to be loved.
We want to be comfortable in our own skin.
We want to be ourselves.
To add to that, another part of why we love John so much is because if we don’t feel like we can have those things for ourselves, the next best thing would be to hang out with someone like John who does have those qualities. I think of friendships as lanterns that keep the path lit for what’s possible for us, for the goodness that we can possess if we have the courage to stay with ourselves long enough to find it.
I am deeply fascinated by friendships and think it might be one of the most overlooked parts of mental-health. We spend so much time focusing on the relationship you have with yourself and the relationship you have with your partner, but the backbone of our lives, ie our nearest and dearest, ride or dies, don’t get the love, care, or appreciation they rightfully deserve!
Your mental-health needs good friends like John!
For instance, need a literal word-for-word script for how to apologize to a friend when you were a touch too judge-y and insensitive to what they’re going through? Great, call up your friend to apologize and say exactly this:
“Okay so I might have been a little judgmental the last time we spoke. You are in an unusual situation and as your friend I should have created a safe space for you to share without the threat of criticism. So, I’m sorry, I am here, no judgement…what is going on???”
John shows us that good, wholehearted friendship don’t need to be perfect, they just need to be honest.
Do you know how safe that would be to be on the receiving end of those words and that posture of kindness and humility? So stinking safe! John shows us that perfection is not a requirement in any way for being a good friend. In fact, John would loose so much of his goodness if he tried to be less awkward and quirky. No! his eccentricities is what makes him most lovable!
The very fact that he’s comfortable with himself means that he doesn’t need to hide his messes. He can apologize, he can do the repair work, and he can move on because his self-worth isn’t in question.
This is why we go to therapy folks! So the statement “I am worthy” gets to have a period at the end of it, not a question mark.
It also needs to be said that your quirks and oddities also make you endearingly (and sometimes aggravatingly) lovable! Please don’t try to hide those. I mean, maybe try harder not to kill the fish, but like, if something had to go, I’d be okay with the fish dying too.
I tend to love people who don’t love everyone and are choosey about who gets their affection. You can tell while John loves deeply, he doesn’t love widely. Which is why I also smirked at the opening scenes with those pictures of Harper and Abby falling in love…and John always being in there with them. It’s perfect! As I watched the story, you can tell John is deeply protective of Abby. And when you are deeply invested in a friendship with someone like that, you just don’t have time to be everybody else’s best friend.
It makes me think of a dear friend of mine who is like John in a lot of ways. Our friendship grew slowly but once the friendship really blossomed, I found myself in the presence of one of the most loyal and kind and attuned friends I will ever have. She loves deeply and generously. She’s incredibly quirky and asks even more questions than me, which is VERY impressive! She can do that because she doesn’t let just anyone in. She’s choosy with her affection, not in a scarce, competitive way where you have to earn it, but in a way that she knows she has limits and wants to be intentional to give her affection to the people in her inner circle. And I am unashamed to say I drink the goodness of our friendship up!
The takeaway from watching John is that we all need our own versions of John to keep us in check and to offer us the support we need to do this human thing.
I guess you could say, I have my John. And I am so, so thankful.
I hope that you either have or will soon find your own version of John. The one who will call you out by saying, “Yeah, I mean, there’s nothing more erotic than concealing your authentic self.” but more so, will be the one to bring you a coat on a cold winter’s night after your heart gets broken to help you hold all the fragmented pieces and tell you just how loved you are.
That scene where Abby and John were outside together felt like the most important scene in the whole movie. That moment of coming out whether it be to your parents or a pastor or a friend or your sisters or a therapist is terrifying. And as John so poignantly named every person has their own story…Abby had love and support from her parents which is becoming more and more the norm and John had an entirely different story where his Dad didn’t talk to him for 13 years, which has been more of the norm, but is slowly becoming less the norm as more beautifully told stories like this are told.
I want to hold space for the many of you all have stories of trauma and harm and even greater abuse that followed you right after you came out from family members, pastors, friends, etc. It makes me think of these lyrics from Brandi Carlisle about the messy process of forgiving her pastor for not letting her get baptized because she was gay in the song By the way, I forgive you. My favorite lines says:
“They told me the best revenge would be a life well lived…”
It seems as though John’s character embodies revenge by living his life well, by not making apologies for being his endearingly quirky self. We love John so much because we possess our own endearingly quirky qualities that long to come out. John gives us a taste of the goodness that can be found when we choose to be completely and fully ourselves without apologies or reservations.
I hope that you do find your John’s.
And if you have a John in your life, I hope you will make time to tell them how special they are to you. I promise they won’t hate hearing it one bit! Because one of the greatest gifts of friendship is that in loving us so well, they help to teach us how to start loving ourselves fully and completely.
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This movie y’all. Truly a highlight of this year and you better believe I’ll be cozying up on the couch to watch it for a 4th, 5th, maybe even 10th time this Christmas season…because if I am not able to go to my childhood home for the holidays, I’ll just hang out in the Caldwell’s lovely abode and continue to lust after that leopard print wallpaper!
I am grateful for this love story that is also a coming out story. I hope there are many, many more good, wholehearted love stories that center folks from the LGBTQ+ community to come. I want my future kids to grow up being familiar with beautiful love stories happening between all kinds of people, not just a man and a woman. I want it to be safer for folks in the Queer community to exist and play and love and be without fear of harm or violence or hatred. One of the many ways that gets to continue to happen is through representation in the arts with movies just like this.
Wherever you are on your journey of being human, I hope this movie is a gentle companion to you this holiday season to find the courage to be yourself, to embrace the people who love you in your fullness and messiness, and if given the choice between fitting in with the norm or belonging to yourself, that you will bravely walk the path of belonging to yourself.
Warmly,
BB