Thread by @mountain_mic, Since today is my 31st birthday, I figured I would tell y'all [...]

Since today is my 31st birthday, I figured I would tell y'all about the time I found out on my 29th birthday my mother, Bobbi, and close friend from high school, Mark, started a relationship behind my back which ultimately lead to my greatest breakthrough.

I'm sharing this story not to be messy, but to ultimately help somebody! It's my hope that by me sharing this story, it will encourage more people to break generational curses and no longer allowing the mindset of "Indentured Servitude" to our parents cause us any more trauma.

I know this thread is lengthy, but I wanted to share a complete story with context. Cause I hate reading these types of threads and have so many unanswered questions, so bare with me and grab your popcorn, because @TylerPerry wishes he could've wrote this!

Mommy Dearest - Part 1

Our story begins in December 2017. Mark had recently relocated to Las Vegas from our homewtown, Sacramento, for "work." He reached out to me to get in contact with my family who relocated there some years prior.

At the time, I thought nothing of it, because Mark was like family to me. Plus, I knew my family was venturing into the Cannabis business and could use another "Foot Soldier." I also knew Mark could use some familiar faces in a new city and connected them immediately.

Fast-forward to Christmas, my family and I decide to celebrate in San Diego. It was convenient for me since I live in LA; plus, we were staying in the Gaslamp District near the USS Midway. How fitting because both my little sister and brother-in-law are Navy veterans.

The Trip was amazing besides the fact that my mother kept having to step out to take "collect calls from an inmate at…" during family moments. And no, it wasn't Mark. It was her boyfriend she had met in Vegas, but he had to go back to Alaska for a probation violation (I think?).

Anywho, there was one particular moment from that Trip that stuck out with me. It was at Christmas dinner where my mother's recounting of an interaction with a woman she had encountered in an airport, that sat eerily with me on my drive back to Los Angeles.

While at dinner my mother tells me about this woman she met who didn't have a relationship with her adult children. She was so enamored by the fact that this woman, who seemed happy, traveling the world, was surviving and functioning without a connection with her children.

What alarmed me was the fact that my mother seemed impressed by this woman, almost inspired even. She had already been talking to me about moving out of the house she forced my sister and her husband to buy with her, because she felt "restricted," and needed her own space.

In spite of all of this, my family and I had big plans for the new year. I had decided I was finally going to properly celebrate my birthday after years of it being surrounded by legal proceedings related to my sexual abuse from the hands of my church choir director as a minor.

Now it's the first Friday of January 2018. My family and Mark have driven down from Vegas to LA to purchase some cars from an auction. Apparently Mark had acquired a license to purchase cars from police auctions or some sh*t, who knows?!

My mother hit me up prior to their arrival and informed me they wanted to go out so I set it up. I already had some friends in town for the New Year, so it was lit.

We ended up in WeHo (West Hollywood) because why not lol!? By this point, its my friends, their friends, my mother, Mark and I having a good ol' drunk and high time at the gay bar. To keep the party going, Mark suggests we go to the bar and get everybody more drinks.

While at the bar and overcomed by Hennessy, Mark begins to get emotional and proceeds to pour his little heart out to me about how much he misses me as friend. It's accompanied by "Guilty Tears" and followed up with how I'm pretty much his only "Real" friend.

I'm touched and equally thrown off by the emotional display, because Mark has never been the one for transparency, especially emotions. He thrives in satire and the façade of belonging to street culture, when in fact, we both grew up in Middle Class neighborhoods.

Both of our mothers were hard workers, his an educator, mine a former HR executive (before she medically retired from a bone-growth condition that impacted her nervous system). We also connected over the fact that we both lost our fathers at very young ages to gun violence.

The following week, my mother, Mark and brother-in-law returned to LA to pick up the vehicles they purchased from the auction. By this time we are heavy into planning my 29th birthday which I was hosting on the roof of my apartment building (but under the radar).

I was adament about doing minimal work and spending minimal money on this party. I'd rather have received the cash to invest in myself than use it for a party, but my mother insisted. My mother's insistence wasn't out of the norm, but definitely something to note.

I started getting suspicious the following week when only my mother and Mark returned to LA. While at dinner at Roscoe's, noticing a change in body language and energy, all I could think about is, "what the f*ck could those two be talking about for 4 hours on the drive to LA?"

I'm thinking, "I'm just being paranoid," cause there's no way this is a thing because my mother and I had set a boundary years ago that she wouldn't date any men I knew. The reason being is her suitors started getting closer to my age and my masculinity felt threatened.

My entire childhood I was always told I wasn't "masculine enough." From my mother, step-father, sister and peers, I was brought up under the doctrine of "Boys Don't Cry." I learned from an early age that I could exert my masculinity via brute force, regardless of my sexuality.

On tomorrow’s episode we find out how I confirm my mother and Mark were dating and what led me to blocking my mother from contacting. Hope y’all are still rocking with me. Share with your friends if you like the story so far.

Adding Part 2 to the thread https://twitter.com/mountain_mic/status/1223467666863616000