Has anyone here restarted a professional career in their late 50s? I am trying and it isn't going well. I got sick in 2008 and the medical people didn't figure out what was causing it until over a decade later. They fixed it and now I'm (very) healthy. I'm also almost 60. I have a long gap in my resume. I was working but only part time and very low gear. Nothing interesting and not the challenging work I loved and would like to do again. All the advice I've seen is to do things like talk vaguely about a family medical issue, take graduation dates off my resume, and remove old job experience from my resume. But the old experience is the only experience I have relevant to what I want to do. Taking my graduation dates off my resume strikes me as futile and disingenuous. Talking vaguely about family medical issues is all very well for a six month hiatus, but doesn't seem like a satisfying way to explain why I was only doing stupid stuff for over ten years. Oh and also I have hardly any references. My recent references can only speak to my ability to do non-challenging things. A horrifying number of people who I would have used as references in the past are now dead. Thoughts?