The Happiest Season: Why Harper Deserves So Much Better
Tags: Compassion, Happiest Season, Lesbian, Coming Out, Gay

In the past few weeks, I’ve come across lesbian influencers being shockingly critical toward The Happiest Season and one of its main characters, Harper. Harper, a girl struggling to come out to her family, has been torn down by the lesbian community for being toxic toward her girlfriend, Abby. As a fellow lesbian, I’m here to express my sadness and frustration at my own community for the lack of empathy they have displayed toward her struggles.

Harper deserves better. She deserves much more compassion from the lesbian influencers who have cancelled her for being a “toxic bitch”. She deserves more from people who have supposedly been through similar experiences. I am choosing to vouch for her because I have yet to see a single person in our community speaking out about the heartbreak that goes on inside of someone who is in her position.

Harper is me. I am Harper. I am the girl writing these words under a pseudonym as you read because she is afraid her mom might somehow find it. I am the girl who felt so deeply for Harper as she watched the movie because she knows what it’s like to fall in love inside of the closet. And no matter how much you’re banging your bruised fist against the God-damn closet door, it doesn’t budge because one day you realize your mom is on the other side beating her fist against yours.

Fear, guilt, and shame knocks my bones and crawls under my skin every time I go home. I go home alone, because i can’t bring my girlfriend with me. I actually pulled a Harper once out of sheer desperation because I wanted her to come home with me so badly. I introduced her as a friend, tried to show my mom how wonderful she was, and then revealed shortly after that she was actually my girlfriend. After finding out, my mom no longer acknowledged her existence.

“If I choose my parents, I will lose you. If I choose you, I will lose them. I am not hiding you, I am hiding me.” These words hit me hard when Harper shouted them out. I’ve said almost the exact same words to my girlfriend in a similar situation. I desperately shouted these words to her, angry that she didn’t understand how I was invisible to my own family. I wanted her to know that in hiding her, I was protecting myself.

Toward the end of the the movie when Abby shakes her head and tells Harper that her coming out was too late, a part of me collapsed. I felt so deeply for Abby and so deeply for Harper. I felt for my girlfriend who feels left out of my story sometimes and i felt for myself who can’t escape the closet. But I thank the universe everyday that she chooses to stay and lend me her God-given patience so that we can have a better future. If I didn’t have her, I don’t know what I would do. If my suffocating relationship with my mom teared ours apart, I would lose all faith in the good of humanity and doubt the strength of a loving relationship. I didn’t ask for my mom to dangle her love over my head, and neither did Harper.

When John asked Abby how her parents reacted when she came out and she said that they told her they still loved her, I thought what the fuck. Even though I know many people whose parents reacted the same way, I always have to take a moment when I hear a happy story. “I love you no matter what.” Even if I dig deep into the crevices of my imagination, I genuinely can’t hear those words being uttered in my own mom’s voice.

Still, Harper had no excuse treating Abby like that. She lured Abby back into a toxic relationship. She would’ve been better off with a different woman (Riley!). Fair. Abby deserves someone who is ready and can treat her the way she wants to be treated. But I think we are all forgetting that long-term relationships are also fucking messy. Relationships that last decades and what they call “true love” are full of trial and error. Mistakes are made and lessons are learned. I am not dismissing the existence of abusive partners who certainly do not deserve our compassion. Abusive relationships are very real and they should not be glorified in any way. Rather, I am urging everyone to remember that we all have toxic traits living in us. Having toxic traits doesn’t make you a toxic human — it makes you human. I shudder thinking, “what if my girlfriend had left me when I had struggled to come out to my mom?” I am not toxic and I am capable of maintaining a healthy relationship while amending my relationship with my mom. So instead of canceling Harper for being a terrible partner, I want us to remind ourselves that relationships are multi-layered. They are neither good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. There is peace and toxicity in every relationship.

Unlike Harper’s, my story doesn’t have a happy ending (yet). My mom hasn’t declared her desire to learn karate, break out of her own shell, and come back downstairs to be an ally. In fact, she has always been the supreme upholder of the expectations I fail to meet. I’m not sure if she will come around, but i hope she does. Until then, I vouch for all the Harpers in the world who, like me, are dealing with their inner demons, trying their best to please everyone including herself. I vouch for the Abbys like my girlfriend who believe in their Harpers and give them a second chance. I vouch for moms who admit their mistakes. And finally, I vouch for the Johns who… might not be able to save a fish but will drive hundreds of miles to save a friend.