n0tme

I am not 40 yet, only turned 36 couple of days ago. However, I am desperate and in need of advice.

I think I made a mistake when I was younger and chose a career path of a database administrator, even though I always enjoyed programming more. Moreover, I still do some programming, mostly for fun: little side projects, some codewars, some codefights, screeps. I really enjoy working with JavaScript and it's infrastructure: git, npm and all that. I also have experience with a lot of other languages, like PHP, python, basic/vb, pascal/delphi, c++ and do lot of shell scripting, PL/SQL programming, SQL and SQL tuning at work.

The problem is, I am 36. I can not switch jobs, because it would mean to get back to junior salaries, which really looks like a super bad option and bad decision + there would probably be more yesterday students, who would be happy to get this junior role.

So what I wanted to ask is what would you do if you were me. Please, do not tell me to kill myself or keep rotting at my current job/position/career path.

Thank'all.