Living versus Reading

I had a really ugly day today.  Oftentimes my personal appearance is not something I obsess about, and I would rather spent my few minutes in the morning reading my book over a nice cup of tea than frantically trying to make my body a canvas on which I try to inscribe significance.  But today... Today!  My god, today I was competing with  South Park's Ms. Crabtree for haggardness.

It made me realize that there's a line between obsessing over appearance and being lost so completely in my own interiority that the reality of myself disappears, and today was it. 

I am not naturally a feminine creature, but sometimes I wish I was.  When other young girls were giggling amongst themselves and grooming each other to be all of the stereotypes of what it means to be a woman, I was sitting alone in my closet to escape the noise and chaos of my household  and reading Little Women or the Little House books.  I escaped myself and the squalor of the reality around me through these books, and even now I suspect I do the same thing.

My parents were not well off.  My father made as much money as I make now, but he had five other people to support.  We always had enough to eat, but sometimes the quality of the meals were less than desirable (for example we would have nothing but spaghetti or kraft dinner for a week straight).  And as for clothing... well, I was given hand-me-downs from several generations ago.

I think the following school photograph can capture the phenomenological experience I am trying to tell far better than words ever could. I'm the one in red and white in the front row.

I realize that this difference in me, this alienation I felt from my earliest years, was what halted my "natural development" as a girl.  Because I didn't have young girl friends, I missed out on all of that female knowledge which was passed along amongst themselves.  I didn't learn about makeup and hair tricks.  I didn't learn how to walk in high heels, or how to combine colours.  I didn't learn how to cook or clean, or how to manage finances.  I missed out in learning life because I fell in love with Beth and Jo and Laura Ingalls.

Would it have been better if I had never met these characters?  Would I have gained more practical knowledge and be happier now if I had learned less literature?  Would my relationships work out better?

Or would I simply find another excuse for my failure?