I'm happy I could help, I hate to see current industry workers forget what it was like to wonder and be uncertain before taking the plunge. Gatekeeping is an unfortunately common part of IT.

It sounds like you have a solid start in terms of homelab work, I'd definitely talk to your local library and get some real workplace experience. Homelab experience is easy to disregard when hiring unless you can show your work too, so network diagram charts or a splashy data visualization page on a server you can access remotely will help in interviews. The library experience is actual workplace application of knowledge so that's much harder to ignore and should be a priority.

I wish you all the best, I'm sorry your first encounter with the community was a territorial greybeard. As ever, I remain happy to help if you think of more questions.