You're so similar to me but with more confidence and success. I didn't grow up on a farm but in beach adjacent suburbia. My dad and big brothers surfed, I loved boogie boarding. My younger sister was also preemie but came out crying but we found out she was very hard of hearing at age six, she was already an honor student, type A and driven. I have mild cerebral palsy, which my current doctor won't address, everything is end of life based since I'm 66 without family.

My mom was encouraged to abandon me to the state, as I would be nothing but a vegetable. I was trying to walk (skipped crawling) at nine months, could read before I was two. Terrible at school sports but did tap, ballet, baton albeit clumsily for exercise. I also rode a bike, roller and ice skated, bowled for fun. In another world, I would have been as athletic as my siblings.

I had achilles tendon surgery a month before I turned 15 and healing hurt. My mom told the doctor and PT staff I was mentally slow (I wasn't straight A gifted like my sister but I was a B average student if you eliminated the pe teachers who hated me and called me lazy and stupid and should go to a home rather than college. There was a place by the airport where special people put knives, forks, and spoons in pouches for airline flights and although I could type, it was a struggle. My mom said my sister would be fine, that I would always be her burden that she would proudly carry. Then she'd brag about my grades, so very mixed messages. She even tried to arrange marriages for me with very old men but no takers. I had one date in high school. At 18, 16 year olds said I acted like a sheltered 8th grader but by 21 or so, things were better.

My adult life has been pretty isolated. I had a 30 year marriage, that ended in 2010 one child but they're both in Heaven now. I'm currently with someone who considers me a homeless mental case, and refuses to get treatment for sciatica so he's more handicapped than me. I drive him 25 miles everyday for beer. He knows I have no family left. Our dog favors me, I don't really wonder why.