Hey just a hello from a fellow yankee as well!
I'm a bit of a 'late' convert here .. owning my first Amiga in 2014
. (emulating way before that).
Why now? I grew up with the Atari 800 (the logical predecessor to the Amiga) as my favorite machine -- ended up on a 520ST because we were an Atari family. Unfortunately the only Amiga I ever saw was only running Rogue - so not a way to show off it's power..from the ST i went to the PC and that was that..
But I've always been curious about the Amiga (now have a 500 and 1200) and love hearing stories like yours - welcome to the forums!