Never TOO late to get it together. Many many of us fail to get everything under our belt in our TEENAGE years, (BFD), and a lot of good folks, are made to EVER SO WRONGLY feel GUILTY!!, for not keeping up with the damned "jones's", and for not being the most highly worshipped human high minded sh*t head of them all. Stereotypicalizm and peer pressure are the weapons of Satan, and are extremely DECEPTIVE.
I am only 62, I may be good looking and full of muscle, women ravish at me and I've been recorded as having an IQ of 155, and all that may not add up to jack sh*t in many eyes. I never made more than 21K in a year, and I had busted my @ss on jobs just about all my life. I was not a lazy loafer who just put in the time and waited for that paycheck, I gave it my all and that is NOT just a statement either. I did my damnedest to keep a job, and would still get kicked to the curb. I was given a diploma in '75 at age nineteen after having more trouble following the normal route of class attendance and study. I quite often made A + on many English, Math and Writing assignments and tests. The faculty found me as quite intelligent and that I had the acknowledgements that would make one worthy of graduating inspite of all my troubles during school. I had a level of ADHD which was unprecedented, and had after-school counseling quite often. I signed myself into a nut-ward after my final year in high school, and also broke out several times in the spring for fun "outings". In April, I prayed to God for the first time in my life, I asked God to take me back out of the nut-ward so that my mother would allow me to move back in the house as we had agreed upon. ( I had these Christians preach God to me a quite a lot, a year or two before, so I finally took it upon myself to go for it on my accord). The very next day after I had prayed to God, as I was at my VOC rehab job workshop, I found I had been discharged from the Neuro Psychiatric Institute. And as agreed upon, my mother HAD to let me move back home. God answered my prayers, (praise God!) and I had great reunions and parties in town and with family and friends. Generally I had a lot of good adventures and times in my life and had troubles too, like some, I was prone to getting hit by cars due to my extreme distractivity. I worked many different interesting jobs in my life even though I never found my original copy of my diploma. I believe my older half brother (who was anti-religious) threw it out along with my study bible and my archives when I came back from Canada in 1976. Much later in life I got back on disability income by surprise, when an attorney unexpectedly won a court case for me after we had lost the case in 2015. I had been cruelly and unjustly fired from the worst trucking company in the United States in 2012. I had given it my all best and had driven for eight weeks with no events or accidents, made all my stops, loads, drops and hooks and communications. I only took the wrong exits a few times. I also had a very nasty trainer who shouted at the top of his lungs all the time. After being fired and relocating, I had felt somewhat suicidal for a little while. I then relieved myself by joking around about a fantasy about someone with a covertly commandeered F111 fighter taking to the airways and going over and annihilating the head quarters of that icky trucking company. ( Of course I NEVER had ANY intentions of actually DOING such a crazy thing, but I found a relief with the joking about it, and I DO have the right to NOT lose my civil rights over a jokingly spoken fantasy). Anyhow, in 2016 while at a different voc rehab setting, I received a phone call, and surprisingly, I was awarded and I got back on disability income, and since I had other government amenities, I found that I could fully retire, not rich, but fairly comfortably, for the rest of my life perhaps. (As long as nothing changes). Fully retiring at a flat age of 60 after all my adventures is not a bad deal in life. And status is something that I pretty much laugh at since it is mostly fabricated in favoritistical manners over the long run by humans. I feel I have been blessed, and I also put away my first few thousand dollars, while keeping my fingers crossed. Yes I could put away money faster when I was working at a local metal cycling company through a temp agency and made more than I did at that awful company I mentioned before. Now as I look to turn my life all to the Lord, I find that God wants a person to ultimately surrender all those things which work ADVERSELY on that person. You see, many people decide that they want to live out the sinful "good life", and THEN turn over to the Lord in order to be soul-saved, while the good life actually most often happens AFTER turning over to the Lord! And NO, there is not a damn thing wrong with "finally getting it together at 53", and anyone who tells you otherwise given what you have said, is only FULL OF you-know-what, and just laugh at anyone who tries to humiliate you on account of what you conveyed here, because eventually, that evil will come back on that person. "Vanity leadeth to much destruction" you don't know how true that statement is! So the answer is YES ! OF COURSE it is okay to "get it together at 53". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And one more thing, . . . . NOBODY, ever, fully totally, "gets it together". And God bless you. High Five. Okay, now it is time to live on, and don't let any son of a b*tch tell you otherwise. Good day.
POST SCRIPT: I just read your small print (I normally read the big print and bypass spending the time to read all the small print. But now that I HAVE read your details, I am almost wondering if you are actually showing off here. Very few people have done all the occupational things you have done here.
. . . . Only a very certain few will get hired to work in photography, so you can not be the kind of "failure" that you are worried about people thinking you are to be here.
. . . .Starting your own business, that doesn't sound to shabby either, you think every single Tom, Dick, Joe and Harry have run their own businesses??? Truck driving jobs, that takes not only skill, but going through a lot of scrutiny to get hired pretty often, I ought to know since I have a class A CDL and did it myself. That is a responsible job that not everyone can handle.
. . . . Ten thousand dollars in a month? How many people make that kind of money?? That's equivalent to 120,000 a year. You look like you've rather hit the advent of the higher echelons of society here. I would stop sobbing.
. . . . Did some college? now take a thought to how many people do not even finish high school.
. . . . .I too, went through a good bunch of abuse and it is certainly not a walk in the park. Dont worry, those c*cks*ckers will get their pay-back, karma will hit them like lightning and a thousand tons of rocks. They WILL reap their rewards sooner or later and I would far rather be you than to be them. Yes, buddy, I too, have been through the drug and alcohol thing as well. Weed, pills, mescaline. Have you done over a thousand hits of acid in your life? I was an LSD lover for a good while. Psychodelics were a fascination of mine, and also pretty art work, the Beatles, dancing and the whole hippy movement as well. Was born in 1955. Went to Woodstock "94 and even danced on the stage at one time. Got one free year in a liberal arts college and lived out the college life. Had all kinds of buddies and part time girlfriends in town. I've had the good life and I've had the hard life. It quite often depends on how we are looking at things, and that can easily be controlled by our inner emotions and as to whether we "look at our glass as half empty or as half full". They also say "you're only about as sad or happy as you make up your mind to be". Yes I even did house painting and piano tuning and worked as a customer service representative along with getting fired from more jobs than I had hairs on my head. I did great at other jobs too, (sometimes). After Bennington College in 1983, I went to Bennington flight school and brushed up my piloting skills for a couple weeks till I run out of tuition money but enjoyed it great and would not mind getting myself an ultralight aircraft but may not quite have adequate money to comfortably keep one. I also dealt with skitsophrenia, was regarded as emotionally disturbed as a child, lost my sister when I was two, and took a lot of beatings and false accusations during my child hood. It seems like the most intelligent, great, original worthy folks also endure the most.
Cheer it up there. And you are not alone in this crazy roughed up world. God bless.
Post post script: "Flux" also told you the way it is. He is correct.