Noctuary, I'm younger than you (37) but am feeling very much the same way these days. I'm single. No wife. No kids. No house. No nothing. Nothing but an empty future. That's the way it's seemed to me lately, anyway.

I've watched the woman I loved more than anything in the world move on, marry another man, and have his child. Watching this happen has destroyed me.

My career has taken a sudden downward turn. All of a sudden, I'm faced with the prospect of what I've always done for a living being inapplicable to a rapidly changing world. This, too has destroyed me.

But I'm still alive.

I've decided to go back to school. It's going to be tough. It's going to be expensive. But it's a chance to change the future I see. There are other options.

I know 47 seems to be late in life, but 37's not exactly a spring chicken either. Not in a world that values youth above all else. What's true for both of us is that we have decades ahead of us left to live, and we can still control the way in which we live them.

Me, I'm going to fight for those decades.

You can do it too. 47 isn't too late. It isn't. What I have begun to understand is that when you have nothing left to lose, it really never is too late to start again.

You can change your life. The long days can be filled up with things that matter. I believe this. I want you to believe it too.