Thank you for a lovely summary.

I find it difficult to read pieces like this -- and that's not the fault of the piece. Reading through the lists of things I can never have and be disturbs me at a really deep level. I avoid thinking about these things in my day-to-day life, because of their effect on me. I think it's soul anguish, for lack of a better term.

I think our situation is analogous to other human experiences where some handicap or deformity can't be corrected and must be lived with. Ours, however, is relatively unique, in that it is thrown in our faces a hundred times a day, simply in the process of living. Perhaps children with cleft palates who live in societies where they are seen as cursed and shunned 24/7 feel something of what we feel.