What I've found is that now, in middle age, I LOVE Math! Perhaps there was something in me all along that could do it and was even talented at it. In fact I find it addictive and sometimes I would rather do math than my art. I have lots more math books now, many more than my original 1958 college algebra text, and I'm fascinated by how math teaching has changed from 1958 through the 80's up to the present.
Having been introduced to algebra, I am now working on re- learning geometry, again starting from the very beginning with lines, angles, and triangles. Here I am on firmer ground, as geometry was the only mathematical subject I did well in back in school. Also, my specialty in art is architecture and I work with blueprints, so in a way I've been doing geometry all along. I never quite thought of geometry as MATH.
As for Physics, I have been less successful. I have not gotten beyond learning about simple straight-line acceleration, parabolic trajectories, and Newton's laws of motion. I will continue with physics when I have learned more math, including trigonometry. I never took physics at all at any time.
I am told by a physicist that it will take me twelve years at least to learn to understand modern physics as the scientists do, i.e. mathematically, enough to read and understand scientific papers rather than popular science books. At least I've made a start and I hope I live that long.
My study method is not "brilliant," I am doing this slowly and methodically, one step at a time, one problem at a time. I don't skip anything. I am not in any school classes, I am doing all of this from books by myself with the help of kind mathematical friends who sometimes help me out. I have had to confront issues of both gender (girls don't/can't do math/science!) and age (can't learn math over 30, it's for fresh energetic young guys).
During my long years without math, I often told science/math types that I was talentless and stupid at math and couldn't do it. Then they said, don't I work with architecture and blueprints in my art? Yes, said I. They said (many different times) well, this is math, you are doing it now! I DIDN'T BELIEVE THEM. It was only when I took up Geometry again, my current work, that I realized that it was TRUE.
I had assumed that MATH is incomprehensible symbols and piles of numbers, I never suspected (or suppressed my realization) that Geometry is also MATH. All those angles and lines and planes and proportions, etc. - I've been competently working with them all along! They just weren't quantified. So I've been working with MATH all along, I just didn't realize I was doing it. Like the famous "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" in the Moliere play, who had to realize that he had been speaking Prose all his life and never knew it.
Why am I doing this? I am not going to become a professional scientist or even go back to school for it. I am fascinated by the world of professional scientists especially physicists - it is a culture unto itself, permeated by macho values, high-intensity bravado, competition, and conflict, and one "brilliant" guy after another. But I would hardly want to be part of this world, any more than I would want to play on a professional football team.
I guess I am doing this because I love it, and because after all these years it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I will admit that it also gives me a sense of power, that I can wrestle a problem down to the metaphorical ground and pin it. It's my way of being a little bit macho, even though I am a middle aged arty lady. It is also intellectually satisfying - I love learning big, complex systems. I hope that I'll be able to do this for the rest of my life. Maybe in 2013 I'll be able to ponder the mathematical mysteries of string theory. Of course by 2013 string theory may have been disproved and thrown onto the junk heap of science. Or it might, for all we know, be verified. That's the great thing about math and science, they never end. There will always be more.