Do you have static ip’s ?

Maybe you have to go to a 4 year university where they really teach you. A 2 year It degree is from where - might not be enough to get you started. I remember taking lots of programming courses at the Harvard Extention school while working as a programming during the day. I would spend nights and weekends at the School’s lab programming my assignments. You gotta get your feet wet. Find a really good mentor or teacher that will guide you as you seem a little bit lost with all the complexity. Practice the KISS principle.

Decide what you want to self-host. Keep it simple at first then work your way up as need be. You could first self-host a simple web site. You could use Tailscale free vpn with 100.x.x.x ip’s to test your setup from another computer anywhere.