It's never too late. Right?

Yesterday was my 46th birthday. I share this not to elicit happy birthday wishes, but because at some point during the day I realized that I was very nearly to the literal middle-age point [assuming, God willing, that I live to be 100], and have really just now decided to seriously pursue my passion for music. And I have to ask myself: Is it too late?

I won't bother with all the childhood angst details [although if you'd like to trade stories, I'll gladly share over coffee or a nice chocolate martini]. Suffice it to say that somewhere along the line I forgot how to sing with the sheer love and joy of simply making music. Whatever freedom I had been born with was replaced by self-consciousness and doubt. I had to audition for a place in my high school choir, and wound up paralyzed at the thought of not getting in. I didn't go to the audition. And so, with the lack of foresight typical of most adolescents, I gave it all up.

But we never really forget our first true love, do we? I eventually returned to singing by joining my church choir and then a community chorale, eventually working my way up to where I am now as music director and principal cantor for my church. I have been blessed with fabulous voice teachers who have been both encouraging and challenging. I'm learning to conduct, which is opening up a whole new exciting world. But while I am grateful for the opportunities I've been given I deeply regret quitting as a child, because I missed out on the formal training I believe would have made my life as a musician so much easier. Or at least slightly less stressful. How frustrating it is not to know what might have been.

And so, here we are today. Did I squander whatever opportunity I may have had in my childhood? Is it possible to make up for "lost time"? George Elliot wrote that "it's never too late to be what you might have been."

I'm counting on it.