Age, does it make a difference?

I stumbled onto Lisa's blog this evening and read from the following post: http://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2009/09/am-i-too-old.html It struck a chord with me because I had lately been musing on the same subject. You see, I went to college and received a Bachelor's in Music Education in 1977. I went directly to graduate school because I wanted to pursue another career. Then I met Larry, and well, I don't have to tell you what happened to my plans for the future....We married, had 3 kids, and I chose to stay at home with them. When our first one reached school age, we decided to home school them. Our youngest graduated from high school in 2005 and I began my search for a new "career". As time passed, it became clear that our autistic son's needs were growing larger and I became his full time care taker, for the most part. Services for him are very limited because he has an average IQ.I pursued my primitive/folk art and began showing in festivals and art shows, which I loved. But I began to feel a need to do something that was just "mine", apart from our son and my husband. At one fall festival I met some ladies from a dulcimer club with whom I struck up a conversation. They encouraged me to take the dulcimer, which Larry had made, down from the wall and learn to play it.I had strummed around on it some, but that was when I began to seriously work and learn to play. That was 2 years ago.Now I want to do more with it but I have had some of the same thoughts that Lisa wrote about in that post. Am I too old to do more than just play for my own enjoyment? Can I become a better player? How much can I expect to achieve?When I hear people like the "rat pack" that Bing shared the photo of, I think I must be crazy to think I could do any more than what I am doing. But then again, I look at the progress I have made in just 2 years and wonder what it will be like in 2 more years if I continue, at least, at the same rate of growth.Another question...do I really want to invest the time into this? I have had little time to work on my art this past year and I would like to do more with that.And lastly, my husband was unemployed for 8 months and If the economy continues to change, I will have to find a regular form of income. I know that playing dulcimer is just a hobby for most folks, but I want to take it further than that.Just my musings.... Teri