I changed careers when I was 38 and I'm now 46. I've been destitute, chasing crappy flying jobs since then, just recently finding something that will be stable.

Your path will be the following:

Get all your ratings, either 30-40k cash or loans.
Go flight instruct for $20-30/hr flight time, a good flight school you'll get 20 hours a week. You'll need at least at least 1200 hours of flight time and possibly 1500 depending on when you start instructing.

From there, you have two choices, go to the charter side, work for dirt bag operators that will push you into doing immoral, illegal or unsafe things to build more time, or go to a regional and live at a crash pad, while bringing home $1200-1500/mo after taxes. This wont go up much after the first 3-5 years.

If you get on at a skywest or reputable operator, you'll have some job security, but there are a lot of operators out there that are teetering on a fiscal cliff, and you could and most likely get furloughed.

At your age, the last thing you want to be is as 121 airline pilot furloughed on unemployment with little hope of getting recalled or picked up by another operator. If you do get picked up, you start at the bottom of the pay scale. If you are 121, good luck trying to slide over into the 135 charter arena, as many operators wont touch an ex or furloughed airline pilot.

Thats the ugly.

You could get lucky, but go in with your eyes open because right now, there are a lot of pilots on the street with varied experience. Competition is fierce.

Do I regret the decision I made? Absolutely not.