I'm in a somewhat similar boat. I wanted to design video games. Create worlds, write characters, work on mechanics. I went to school for computer science and took a bunch of classes to learn skills necessary to make games. Then I made two games. Turns out I hate it.

Now I'm a lawyer and I sue drug companies for a living. I still spend time building my little worlds, but I don't think I'll ever make them into anything more than TTRPG campaigns.