u/No_Departure7494

In the hospital. Stomach ache June 2nd. June 3rd we go to the hospital at 7 AM. Arrive. I wait patiently in the ER. Finally they let me in, it turns out to be, what they think was - colon cancer. They said she had no muscle mass, etc.

6:00 PM, after hours of being in agony and the pain meds not working, I go to give her a sip of water from the cup, placing the straw in her mouth. I see her pupils expand, mouth is agape, and yes - I freaked out, but my body couldn't understand it.

Life and death. Separated by all of 10 seconds. I am not trying to make this profound or anything or disrespect my mother. But that's how impactful it was.

Fear. Anger. Sadness. Desperation. My mind tried to cycle through the inventory of appropriate emotions and was like "Dude... I don't even know what I'm looking at here".

I was in a state of panic, pacing, trying to talk to the nurses, and when they were doing the chest compressions I kept asking them "Is my mom dead? Is my mom dead?" to which they'd respond "Please, let's sit in this room for a minute, okay?".

Again, I'd ask "But... but is she dead? Is she dead?".

I'll say that the most traumatic element came in the form of - Why her? Why me? Have you even been in the hospital visiting someone and the person you're seeing is calm, collected. Perhaps watching TV, talking in a hushed voice... And then it happens. The cacophony of medical alarms ringing off down the hall or in the room next to you. The only thing that comes to mind is "My goodness, imagine if that was us".

Well this time it was. The drama, theatrics. 20 people running down the hall doing chest compressions on my lifeless mother. I legitimately do not have words. The worst is when I have to talk about trauma or PTSD to somebody else and it's just... I don't know. I'm not belittling them or reducing what they've been through. Sexual abuse, emotional abuse, all of it is very real and will destroy your life if not handled. I have a great deal of respect for anyone with PTSD, but to me personally this felt like is was on a different level (in my own life).

The grotesque imagery of the scene. "Is she okay? Is she okay? Is my mom dead? Please just stop fucking with me! Is my mom dead!?" - Sir, sir, please just sit over here with me. Let's find a distraction. "No, really! Is she dead?".

Here's how my mother died. I want to vent, I want someone to hear my story.

Early June she comes home and is looking great. Carrying in a case of water I left in the car, bringing in groceries with me together. Fine, man. Everything was fine. I could tell over the past few months that she seemed slightly off in terms of brainfog (All of 10% brainfog), or caught up in deep though. Looked thinner too but again - She was always VERY thin.

That night she develops a stomach ache and is in the bathroom at around 8 PM. I ask if she's alright, she tells me to give her some space as this felt quite painful. To relax I ran out, did some errands, came home at 9. Still in the bathroom. VERY worrisome. Again, checking to see how she felt seemed to upset her even more. Not in a mean way, but afraid - scared. So I backed off. I went to sleep at 11, woke up at 1 AM to her in the bathroom AGAIN and told her - "Mom, if I wake up tomorrow and this hasn't cleared we're going to the hospital".

I barely slept. Sprung out of bed at 6 AM fueled by adrenaline, no way else to put it. Something. Felt. Off. I see her in the bedroom in so much pain that she's almost non-communicative. The ambulance comes and because she insisted on walking outside to it, they didn't turn on the sirens or lights. 7:00 AM I am sitting in the ER waiting room and terrified. Finally they let me see her. The scans show bowel obstruction. The first doctor didn't seem alarmed, "Oh, this can happen with old age", the second doctor said "You understand that this is generally part of a broader problem, right? We may need to go to the OR and do a colonoscopy". When I asked how serious it was he told me "No one noticed her MUSCLES WASTING?". I told him - Doctor, she was always thin. We've been under a period of high stress, she hid away in her room most days. I didn't know what to look for?! She was always at the doctor, one a month! (Little did I know she declined all tests).

Time passes, they can't give her a surgery, no OR, nothing - because her lactic acid levels were too high. Removing the blockage was impossible without doing surgery, but her body was so weak they had concluded she would have died if anesthetized. Time goes on - More and more morphine. She told me that it felt like gas and cramps that came in waves. Soon the waves became more powerful and subsided less often.

At around 6:00 PM they were coming in to check on her, I was about to give her a cup of water and her mouth dropped open, eyes went wide. Her heart stopped. The nurse ran out, and this army of doctors and staff came in. I saw them doing chest compressions on her. Finally her heart started again. The doctor told me "Her heart is working but now we're going to the ER". As he said that, her heart stopped again and she died.

No one else was there but me. The rest of the family arrived later. I remember walking out to the parking lot and repeating the sentence in my head so that I could recognize what happened "Your mom died today. Your mom died today. You woke up today, thinking it was going to be a stomach flu, a virus, food poisoning, a benign blockage. But your mother died today. You have no more parents at 34. Your mom is gone".

The one thing that had me fired up, raging - Was when the doctor said "Sir, I'd like you to be more respectful of the staff". I said - What on EARTH are you talking about? I've not cursed at a SINGLE worker here because I know it's not their fault. I am terrified that my mother is DYING (This happened as they were doing chest compressions in the background) and to be honest - I think I am handling WATCHING MY MOTHER DIE pretty well! Who have I been disrespectful to? WHO!?

It seems as though many of our present enemies reached out to assist us after the attacks..

Iran had a candle lit vigil and offered search and rescue assistance for potentially downed pilots while bombing Afghanistan. Actually, I think they even granted us overflight rights.... IRAN!

Gaddafi publicly condemned the attack and ordered his intelligence agencies to hand over their files on Al-Qaeda to the CIA.

Yasser Arafat apparently organized a blood drive in Gaza and literally donated his own blood to American victims.

Putin was the first foreign leader to call the US and even contacted Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to encourage basing rights for US troops in these countries...

Am I wrong to think we absolutely sabotaged what could have been a moment of global unity going forward?

I know a guy, nice person - but is constantly flaunting his stuff. Cars, a big home, jewelry. Don't get me wrong, from a purely materialistic standpoint, most of it IS nice too look at and impressive, but at the core - no one seems to care.

The same cycle on social media over and over and over again. Never anything new. Not interests, hobbies. Just. Jewelry, cars, house. On repeat.

How else can I put it? No one gives a shit that he's wealthy and it doesn't seem to increase the respect people have for him even despite all of the flaunting. Weird to watch.

Bob Dylan spoiled me in the sense that for every song he had recorded, about 900 more versions were released in some type of demo track or cut studio recording.

Do you guys have a favorite song where an alternate version has been recorded? Tuesdays Gone, that's mine.

Y'all got me fucked up thinkin thsi shit is normal!? trash orders today from here to kalamozaoo!?

I really hate posting this but sometimes it's difficult to speak to someone who has a strained / dysfunctional relationship with their parents.

"They might as well be dead".

It's not said to insult me, but I think - Listen, one of my parents that passed away was emotionally abusive to me, and still - their death was NOTHING like being estranged to a person that still has a pulse.

You may be lonely, but you don't know what lonely really is. Lonely is not "I refuse to move back in with them because of how horrible they are", lonely is "They no longer exist as a living, breathing human, and it's just me now".

Obviously it's not a desire of mine to start an argument where nothing could really be won, but holy shit... Hearing them try to equate the two and then being like "Yeah, my mom is basically dead to me. Last week she said the nastiest thing and..."

Cool, wish I could fight with my parents but they've been reduced to ashes in urns in my living room.

I am sure someone will take offensive to this but it's one opinion I refuse to back down on. Parents being DEAD are not the same as them being distant but living and breathing. It's just not. And honestly, it minimized my grief which is why the whole conversation was so upsetting... Fuck, dude. "Yeah, can you believe my dad is that much of a dick to me!?". My parents are dead before 35 just a few years apart!!!!

That term "Safe space" became a mockery of itself over the past few years, but really now. You don't qualify, get out, you're not in the club.

Someone brought up a very interesting point about this conflict and, because I have no knowledge on what's taking place on the ground, the historical disputes, etc - It sounded convincing at face value but I'd appreciate if someone here could clarify.

They said - The Gaza bombing was the equivalent of 6 Hiroshima's. 200,000 tons of TNT. Do you know how many people died in Hiroshima? 140,000. How many have died in Gaza? 73,000 (Roughly), or 3.5% of their population. Meaning a more comparable number in Gaza would be 840,000 deaths in total if Israel was aiming for pure carnage.

They concluded by saying - How could we possibly be committing genocide when you look at these numbers? Don't you think that Israel is capable of truly eliminating the entire populous if they wanted to?

Anyway, I just wandered into this sub and figured that on 99.99% of the internet you're going to be obliterated for even asking such a question because it's hyper inflammatory.

Succinctly put - I remember hearing that it was common for the wealthy (Actually, ultra wealthy) to drive unassuming vehicles. Seldom would they drive one of the luxury marques. At most, higher end being a decent Mercedes but nothing like a RR Ghost or what have you.

In my area, I often meet people who are image obsessed but apparently not rich in the traditional sense. And yet - They're driving $80,000 M3s, the latest S Class, and I wonder why? Isn't this burning more money that could be put away, saved, reinvested, anything?

From what I gather, the obvious explanation is not the truth. They aren't car people, they're image people. Forget about reliability, this and that. They want to look rich and it comes off as deceptive, maybe even comical. Driving a $160,000 Carrera GTS in an area with a terrible climate for 50% of the year and no garage to put it in.

I suppose my contention is that, most of these 'hustler' types, especially on social media - have financial practices that are antithetical toward anything involving wealth creation. They'd never be caught dead in an indestructible Prius while having put the remaining sum into literally anything else. No, BMW M3 for me.

I am reading the 9/11 commission book now and they stated that, in their own definitions, "Hijackings" were never intended to be airliners serving as missiles. They assumed the aircraft would land at the airport to have their demands met.

Same goes for NORAD. Most of the anticipated threats were meant to be from outside the US, such as Russian bombers, much less internal.

I say this because there are just some scenarios we weren't prepared for. Some of which that weren't even hypothesized. What would the call be for an F-15 that had a lock on any one of these aircraft that were hijacked on that fateful day?

Lastly - Whether or not this is anecdotal, I do not know, is it true that neither of the 19 terrorists even understood how to LAND the plane? Doesn't that rule out safely returning to an airport?

I am in my 30s and a buddy brought up getting a gym membership to use the local pool. I audibly started laughing and when he asked why I told him - "I haven't gone swimming since 2017. The idea of walking around in shorts with no shirt on seems mortifying to me".

Not body dysmorphia, none of that. Simply that, because of how long it has been, this feels ultimately quite foreign or even embarrassing.

Can you reprogram yourself to grow adjusted?

I am exceptionally easy going, never disputatious, considerate, and would view myself as easy to get along with.

I have a hand full of "Friends" that'll either make plans with me that day, when the time comes to meet up they never call, don't show up, or they'll blow me off (Remember, THEY initiate, not me!), or assume that I am always ready to drop everything and meet up with them - spur of the moment.

The thing that bothers me is that these are just average people like myself. They're not that important, they're not some high status regional celebrities. They're just PEOPLE. I wonder why I fit into the lower caste of their world? The bottom of the hierarchy?

My build is weird as is my style of play. I literally just went out and bought a vizio TV as a monitor like 6 years ago and never needed anything abve 60fps.

Meg ACE z390
i9-9900K (I am still shocked that this is so dated because at the time of buying it, I could have sworn it was some gold standard)
RTX 4080 Super
32 gigs of ram.

Again, when I google my processor I was shocked to find that this was encroaching on stone age. I do play some AAA titles. No issue running Forza Horizon 6, Halo, what have you.

If it works, stick with it?

I try not to play games with people. It's not worth my time. By that I mean - If someone reaches out and needs something, I help them. If they want to meet up, I'll say "Sure - what time?". As a person, I support my friends, encourage them in what they do, and am seldom contentious - if ever. We don't fight.

But many times someone will reach out "Hey man, I'll be in the area around 3, will give you a call then". Radio silence. Multiple people have done this to me and I tell myself - They initiated. They set the time. They blew me off. It is entirely of their making and if they don't wanna hang out, I'm not gonna force them.

Maybe the question is - Why am I so low value / low priority that others feel comfortable doing this to me? As for them? THEY can go fuck themselves, the problem here is what it says about ME.

Before you downvote, hear me out. I come from a small but 'affluent' town in eastern PA. If I said the name, a few people would know it. I do not associate snobby with money all of the time.

In my area, it is being overrun with New Yorkers who don't possess the type of personality that inhabited this place just 1-2 decades ago.

Where you're from, do they turn your nose up if you if your car borders on a beater? Is everyone obsessed with status, who you know? That's how it is here, so tiresome. I also find it funny that their will be some guy living in a condo (Which, I can assure you is NOWHERE near as costly here as it is in SB) but dedicating his entire paycheck to a BMW yet thinks he is somehow part of the elite cast lol.

As an example - This used to be what we'd call a 'farm town'. I was born into it too late to really see that, but that was the idea. An old man driving an unassuming pickup truck could be a millionaire, could've had property he purchased in the 70s, 80s, etc. Well off - with humility. Now? Dispense with all of that garbage. G-Wagons, Bentleys, all of the designer shit. I'm not against them because they're wealthy, but because they think they're better than others for having designer / luxury items. It's very isolating.

Yes, we're generalizing but I grew up here. I am seriously outpriced, it kind of feels foreign now. I spoke to a woman last night who was just passing through and said it felt cold / stand offish.

Was wondering how both people who grew up here + those outside of the area view it?

Is this neurobiological or spiritual. Yes, that's a real question. I used to have gorgeous turquoise eyes that have lost maybe 70% of their shine. Dark, non-reflective.

If this is tangential, please try to parse it to the best of your abilities, haha.

I know that raising a child is an immense, incredibly difficult hurdle, financially and otherwise, and I'm not trying to simplify it. But I often wish I had pursued having a family sooner.

Sometimes I dream about experiencing those formative milestones again through a kid's eyes: showing them Jurassic Park for the first time, teaching them baseball, watching them get their first skateboard, and sharing all those other "firsts." It’s the thought of seeing the world through someone innocent who might actually appreciate the magic of it.

It's funny, I watch my neighbors with their young boy, and they don't seem to feel that way at all. For them, it’s more like, "Yeah dude, it's just a movie, whatever." They are great people but a little on the boring side, so it's hard to tell what's what.

Is this nothing more than glaring naivety? It's not as though my pursuit is in living vicariously through someone, rather - instilling that same 'magic' I once experienced in my life. In my mind, life really fell apart with our family when I was about 6 years old or so. It wasn't tragic, but after the divorce the cohesion vanished. The memories that I DO have are almost ineffable in their value. I guess I'd like to try and give someone else what I didn't really have.

Perhaps it is not so simple?

Also, maybe I should add this, if it even matters. I am younger than 35, both of my parents are dead. Part of me wants to solve this void in a healthy way, and I think redirecting the love you have to one of your own seems appropriate. It may explain the romanticizing.

Moon landing was faked, Charlie Kirk has an exploding microphone / was a hologram, or the worst is when you take literally any topic under the sun and the genius comes along with "Israel is involved". That seems to serve as a one size fits all. Any topic. Weather is a bit unseasonable - Israel.

I wonder if you guys only see this shit online or if it's simply becoming inescapable, even in person?

Forgive my ignorance as I am an observer of Corvettes but have never owned one. It's my favorite car for some reason. I saw a C7 Z06 at a stoplight last night absolutely ripping and immediately went home and started researching prices.

Apparently, the later years are better due to cooling issues being remediated? 3 results came up, a 17' and 19'. Both manual - One going for $98,000, $92,000 ( both 2019s) and the other was a 17' for $87,000.

All of which had under 30,000 miles.

Whereas it's not impossible at all to to find a C8 Z06 going for roughly $100-110K.

The C7 seems like a special generation for some reason. I thought I'd ask. Are these models projected to hold their values well? ZR1 is clearly an aberration given the single year production.