Thank you, Alex!

You describe a familiar situation for me as someone who has taught many adults who have played guitar for many years before deciding to take any kind of instruction. In some ways, a big part of what I do is teach people how to describe and organize what they already know in their heads in a way that allows them to make better use of that knowledge musically. It is never too late in life, but sometimes you have to prioritize your needs on the instrument relative to the time you have available to play and enjoy said instrument.

I think that it is really important to read music as you develop as a musician because it not only gives you this standardized way of communicating with other musicians but the process of learning to read codifies many important musical concepts and ultimately makes you a stronger musician through a better understanding of those concepts.

It it the only way to learn to play music? No, but it really helps. Can you be a musician who can function and express themselves without reading standard notation? Absolutely.

There are so many ways to learn to play and perform music and there is not any one "correct" way to do it. At the end of the day, we can't hear the process that you used to learn how to make your music. We just hear the results.