At 62, I walked into my college graduation carrying a dream I'd been postponing for more than 40 years. Then my professor asked me to step into the hallway, and everything I thought I knew about that day changed. It took time for me to believe that age was just a number and that, with enough determination, anything was still possible. "It has to do with who's going to hire a first-year teacher at retirement age," he snapped. It was better because I'd finally arrived as myself.