It’s been about one year since my last post. I opened up about my mental state, my feelings about my job, my thoughts on my life in that moment in time. I have tried to write about where I am countless times, but the words haven’t flowed. The feelings have ebbed and flowed.
Over the past year, I quit my job. I started a creative venture in streaming on Twitch, I’ve made friends and I’ve lost friends. If my feelings were a rollercoaster, the nausea from the first dip would take you out. You’ll feel reprieve from the next slow rise, but then drop lower. Eventually you’ll find balance, but the operator doesn’t pay attention and the ride starts again.
For one year, I have worked on repairing my heart, caring for my mind, and relearning who I was. The journey has been arduous. I have spent my time in a fog of doubt of what I was accomplishing as a person. Though, I have also spent time on being kinder to myself. To allow myself the space to grow, to fail, to cry, and to revel in any ounce of happiness that I felt.
I don’t want to harp so much on the past, but I need to give closure to my job. For five years, I worked for a company whose mantra was to “nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” I wouldn’t describe it as a dream job, but Starbucks played such an important role in my life.
Without exaggeration, it genuinely saved my life a few times. Starbucks was the backdrop for my coming out to my mother. It was the job that turned into a career. It was a job that allowed me to embrace my ideas, work to develop people’s careers and futures, and become a mentor to people who didn’t know they needed one. The financial stability it provided me allowed me opportunities to support people who needed it more than I did. It gave me access to literal life saving care when I was at my lowest. It taught me so many things that I am grateful for because I genuinely believe I grew into a kinder and more patient person.
As much as my job became my safe haven, it also became my prison. I was working 60+ hours during a pandemic, I was managing a team of people who were seen as an employee first and a human second by my upper management. The phrase “we’re in this together” felt hollow and made me feel lonelier as the people around me burned out. It all came to a crash when I returned from the very medical leave of absence I took when I wrote my previous post one year ago.
I returned to the renovation of a beautiful store and a breakdown of my character. I had come back still not fully healed from the anxiety and demons I was battling for four months while on leave. But capitalism waits for no one’s health and being the son of hard-working immigrants, my brain told me I was ready because I had to be ready. I won’t go into too much detail, but my boss absolutely destroyed me on my first day back. Have you ever gone away for four months after explicitly telling your boss that you were having a mental health relapse and return to photos of your job the week you left to showcase the physical evidence of how badly your mental health was impacting you?
I imagine that someone older might tell me to toughen up. But, when you recall working yourself ragged, doing your best and keeping the business afloat, while reaching goals and metrics you don’t care about it’s hard to not be upset. To be gaslit and told “no, you were not doing well” by the same person who awarded you a day off for winning the competition of positive sales growth after reopening against 12 other stores would have been laughable if I weren’t so taken aback.
To sum up that experience, my boss humiliated me, (with an audience member as another manager was present for what was supposed to be a transition meeting to get me acclimated) while they got to walk away and go on a week vacation, I remained barely standing wondering “how am I going to do this?” By the next day, I resigned to, weirdly enough, their boss, who was doing a site visit. Having spent little time with the big boss, it was a cathartic experience of me crying in the stock room, telling them that I wish the circumstances were different. They offered me compassion that my boss was not prepared to give .That I wish I had spoken to them before I decided to leave because my spirit was broken — by one person, one zoom call, one conversation at a time.
I didn’t last the two weeks that I offered. I still offered all of me to ensure that my team would have a positive experience. I kept giving to the place that was going to easily discard me in two weeks time. It was after my exit interview where I realized, Starbucks didn’t need me. I was replaceable. The call of the Siren was broken and through tears I sent an e-mail apologizing but telling them I couldn’t finish. After one phone call and the return of the company laptop that I wrote my last piece on, I was free to spiral without health insurance. The Tik Tok sound “I am fucking crazy, but I am free,” unknowingly becoming 2021’s mantra for me.
What happened next was comfortable, cozy even. I pursued my high school dreams of being a content creator. In March, I pursued Twitch streaming. After spending the last few months of my medical leave and the first month of my unemployment watching the likes of Sykkuno on YouTube, I thought to myself, why can’t I do that? So, I started joining smaller communities playing games that I loved. Stardew Valley became the common thread of finding Queer and POC content creators who were focused on not only their own success but the promise of community.
Streaming has been a humbling, exciting, and terrifying experience. I’ve always been a showboat. Public speaking has never been a problem for me, I loved to talk. Performing is second nature, because I live my life by one rule and that’s “go for the bit.” I like making people laugh. I like having a dialogue about nuanced topics like sexuality, gender, and discovering yourself. The retail manager and barista in me found myself easily sliding into a version of myself that felt more real than retail ever allowed.
For the first time, I could be unfiltered, authentic, and build a community of people who were looking for the same thing. A safe space for LGBTQIA+, people of color, and people focused on mental health. On a whim, Marx’s Lemonade Stand was born. A place where I’ve met adults struggling with mental health, teens struggling with coming out, and young adults looking for guidance. I’ll be honest, I’m not an expert on anything. I’m not a college grad. All I am is some gay Filipino guy who cares and wants to see people succeed. I am absolutely not perfect. I don’t always get it right. But, I look at life through a lens of be the person I needed on the internet when I was a teen. Be the dumb, funny, sometimes serious, brown gay dude.
So much of the media I consumed as a high school and college kid were straight white content creators. I’m grateful to have been introduced to the platform, but am proud to have a seat, albeit a small one, at the creator’s table. I’m often insecure about what I’m doing. I think about quitting often (literally cried two hours ago telling my boyfriend that I think I’m done streaming), but then I look at what I’ve accomplished since March.
I’ve connected with so many funny, talented, and creative people. I’ve amassed 1.5k people who have followed and supported my content. I’ve been given purpose, drive, and an outlet to be creative again. I’ve made friends who push me to be better. I’ve felt empowered to tackle passions that I thought were lost. I was still lost, but at least I was lost with a community to help push me into the direction I’m meant to go.
So that brings us to now. I am still anxious and I am still depressed. I spent a lot of today being sensitive over things that wouldn’t normally bother me. I spent a good portion of the day crying into a bowl of mashed potatoes and then laughing about how I thought they tasted better from the salt of my tears. Reliving my job experience and reflecting on my time so far on Twitch have really proven that time heals some wounds.
I’m still burned by the past and know that I will be burned in the future. But what really counts is that I live my life in a way that feels authentic to me. Setting boundaries, taking accountability when you fuck up, and acknowledging that every outcome isn’t in your control. I am depressed today. I am anxious today. But I’m not fucking broken, and that is the best healing that a year’s time has given me.
I guess this time I get to end on hope. I get to end on the thought of the future. I still don’t know what that brings, but if you’re interested in seeing if I figure out? Let me introduce you to someone —
Hey, welcome to the Lemonade Stand! I’m Marxelle. I’m a comfy cozy streamer. The game aren’t always comfy cozy, but I sure am! Grab a glass of lemonade and come gay and be vibe!
