It's funny. I can't believe how old I felt when I was 38, but I was still so young.

I was 38 when I left Colorado, which was maybe the place I had enjoyed living the most up to that point in my life. I had been offered a job in Reno at a significant raise in pay, a job offer that came at an extremely difficult point in my life. For the first eight years of my journalism career, I had been working my way west with the goal of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. It seemed to important to me, even though part of it was because of a promise I had made to someone who wasn't even a part of my life anymore.

I was 38 and single -- actually divorced, but alone all the same. I had made significant progress in my career despite a late start, and I was highly regarded in Colorado journalism circles, both as a sportswriter and as a sports editor. But I wanted a family, and I was closing in on 40. I had ne