The problem with my reading books is that I seem to be finding more and more passages that relate to life as I’ve seen it. Or in some cases, as I’ve long not seen it, suddenly realizing what I missed. The first one I’m going to put here I’ve known for a while now, but just saw it written in a telling fashion.

Apparently Chuck Palahniuk has this ability to capture some of the boneheaded mistakes we make in life. So here are just a few that are notable from the first section of his book, Invisible Monsters.

No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it at all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention.

Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters,” Chapter 2

This is very much what happened to my three-and-a-half years in college. And at the very end of this section, there’s another passage that gives me pause:

And then Evie just stops and says, “Why?”

And the audience has started to abandon me in a thousand directions.

Because I really, really, really want my brother to be dead. Because my folks want him dead. Because life is just easier if he’s dead. Because this way, I’m an only child. Because it’s my turn, damn it. My turn.

Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters,” Chapter 5

Sometimes I wonder if my brother’s felt this way before. Given the unfortunately large shoes I left behind, it wouldn’t surprise me all that much.