I have had similar experiences. I graduated from high school early but just could not seem to get interested in college classes, despite my personal interest in a wide variety of topics. I left college and worked for years as a nurse's assistant, eventually cross-training to the point that I was employed in an emergency medical center as an interpreter of telemetry for ER physicians.

  I returned to college around age 30 and kept a 4.0 through most of my undergraduate classes. Now, I'm an environmental scientist doing consulting work for other scientists when they can't figure out how to analyze their own data.

  I stressed for many years about how far behind I perceived myself to be, but not anymore. I look around and what I see, generally speaking, is a lot of people working in fields they don't enjoy and/or aren't particularly talented in. I may have wasted a lot of time but I enjoy my work, I am good at it, and I am compensated well for my time. I win.