> I just find readability such a hurdle

I've had the same complaints when I started. I think, realistically, every programmer who's learning Lisp after getting experience in a bunch of other languages has to deal with that. The mental overhead feels real. Yet, after a while, there's some psychological threshold - Lisp starts feeling more intuitive. At some point, there's just no turning back - nothing ever will feel again more readable than Lisp code. It's just like riding a bike. Once you "get it", there's just no way to "unget it" back.