I've open-sourced some subcomponents of other (closed source) projects — sometimes they've been personal projects, sometimes projects for clients (either way, usually hosted as a private project on GH) — because I figured these things might be useful to someone else.

Nothing big nor overly exciting mind — but the majority of them have gained a small handful of stars, a couple of them have been forked, and a couple of them have had issues filed and/or pull requests.

The OP asks: "perhaps it's just that I'm getting older?" — IDK how age factors into all this, but I was 50 on my last birthday! O_o