You can do anything you want. It is not about if you can but when do you start. It is not a competition and the more you do it the more you will learn.
Have you learned anything since you posted? If you did anything connected to it you surely did. You are not likely to going to become Bach... is that your goal? There was only one Bach.
The more you work on something the more you learn. It's that simple.
When you die, which the day will come, do you want to know something about piano? Do you want to have learned a specific song? Do you just want to know more? [It should be the later]
Learning any skill is learning a bunch of sub skills: S = s1 + s2 + s3 ... and each subskill is a series of subsubskills all the way down.
It takes time to learn each skill.
At your age, unless you live to be 150, you do not have as much time so you cannot learn as much as someone 5 years old. That is just fact of the universe.
BUT you are also living in a time where it is much easier to do anything than ever before. So learning many skills takes far less time. (and once they brain chip us it would be nearly instant... maybe... but that assumes our skills won't be working out in the fields picking their strawberries)
The best advice I can give is for you just to start sitting down at a keyboard(surely you have one as that is the biggest step but even then you can practice without one by learning other things) and playing.
Play like you already know how to play. Don't worry about how it sounds. Use your imagination like a child. Play very fast and play slow. Make crazy sounds, make soft sounds. That is music. It may sound like noise but it is music. You may be embarrassed but why?
Start making sounds. Over time and as you learn more those things you think sound bad will sound good. I used to hate the sound of diminished chords when I played them... but I always loved them in the blues. Many bad sounds you make on the piano actually are great sounds... but it requires context.
Just make sounds. Remember, many great piano players and musicians of the past were self taught. It took them a long time but they got really good and where unique.
The second thing is about time. Since you have less time you should try to put in as much time as you can. The more time you can the better you will get faster.
Since you are retired you likely can put in at least 5 hours. it might seem like a lot but imagine putting in 16 hours a day for years on in as some have done. It might be hard because of your body or mind but the more you try the faster it will happen.
You are, as a human, intelligent enough to "play the keyboard". So do it. If you want it bad enough you will do it.
The the only other thing to do, really, is to learn to "shape" those sounds into things you want to hear E.g., you might not like the music you create but really like Bach or Mozart's sound. They have very sophisticated sounds in some ways but simple in others. What makes music is chords and scales(it's like the letters and words). Practicing those might seem boring but doing so, and after a few months of daily practice, you will understand music like you never have(unless you already have). Learning pieces obvious help too.
There is a lot to do. It is not as simple as people like to make it out. It is not as if you just can just memorize notes and then play but never having played before. Maybe, maybe you can be computer and playback midi. But that s not how it works for a human. There are many things that stack. Learning reading is very important. it is a skill that one only gets better at.
Here are some things you can try as you might not be aware: Go to youtube and type in "score -sight reading". and watch the scores. if you spend 6 months watching scores before you go to bed you will, in 6 months know how to read sheet music in a way that you never understood. It will make sense. you might have to learn what those symbols mean so you can good them or use Qwen. find some chord and scale books(in RL or online) and figure out what they mean and apply them. Find some simple songs to play and start working on them. Do "improve".
The problem isn't so much that you can't play(playing most piano music is actually relatively simple) it is that you don't know how to figure out how to learn the skills. Unfortunately only you can figure it out for yourself. I gave you some possible ideas.They may be a waste of your time. You can try them tough to find out. Sometimes though it might seem like a waste but it takes more than a few days to know it. It might take a year or even 10 years(in fact, you might play piano for 10 years and find out you hate it. Probably not but you don't know until you do).
But the first step is to play. it is that easy. Just play. Learn to feel the keys, the black notes, the stretches, try to play crazy stuff. If you hear something in your head try to play that. Listen to the sounds, the way notes work together, how hard you can hit a note and how that works. Short and long, etc All these things that you can get at by just sitting at a piano and banging on it is music. Modern music is just a very refined form of this. The same is true of math, chemistry, art, politics, etc. "Time" refines everything. You will learn and things become clearer and then learn more and clearer. At some point you will reach a point and you will be happy and stop or want to move further or not be happy and stop. It will be what it is.
What I can tell you as a matter of fact: If you are able to put in the time you can do it.
That is a tautology. If you put in the time you can do it. It's really that simple. No matter how complex your mind twists it, if you put in the time you can do it. I've seen a guy with no arms play the guitar. I've seen a guy with no fingers play the drums. I'm sure you can play the piano. Now if you have no arms it might be very difficult to achieve what you have in your mind so you might have to switch to a different type of piano such as a guitar or bass and use your feet. If you have no arms and feet then you might have to play the "piano" with a computer that can track your eye moves and such. Where there is a will there is a way. The path may be blocked so you have to find another but there is always a path.
Topic: older (66) wanting to play piano