Gender is complicated. And not everyone feels or expresses it the same. And yes, you can feel different than you present. For example internally I am agender. I feel no particular connection to either binary gender or anything in between. But I greatly prefer to present feminine, be emotionally close to feminine people, and I had some physical genital dysphoria.

It took me a really long time to figure out all of it because we're told it's all very simple and just dependent on what genitals you had when you were born, or if that was indeterminate, what the doctor and/or your parents decided. And then our entire personality and how we interact with society will just automatically fit that one thing.

Deconstructing gender helped me a lot. Separating what I feel, how I want to present, and what physical things were bothering me. Honestly, I wasn't even too keen on hormone therapy though I knew that was often requires by insurance in order to get bottom surgery even though gate keeping WPATH recommendations even have exceptions for that now. But I actually ended up liking having breasts and the emotional changes in the end. I had a hard time calling myself "trans" as I didn't want to take up someone else's space. But that was silly. Anything outside of extreme binary of your AGAB is under the trans umbrella. And for presentation, I did start wearing makeup and presenting less masculine, but originally used they/them pronouns and just tries to transition away from masculinity rather than towards femininity. It's a difficult line to find though and I ended up really liking being more feminine and chose to switch to she/they pronouns and pursue facial feminization and a few other things. I'm still on waiting lists for those.

As for age, it's definitely not too late. I really started "transitioning" a few years older than you and I'm now almost 50 and just had the bottom surgery a year ago. Of course, health can determine if you can surgically transition later in life, but the non surgical stuff is mostly still possible at any age.

Anyway, my point is, there is no "right way" or even any specific goal that all people under the trans umbrella should always have. Transitioning to an extreme binary is not at all required. Do what is beat for you. You are 100% valid.