I am 65 on Monday and my husband of 26 years (September 23) just died October 4. I have no children of my own (my grown stepsons/daughters-in-law are very supportive though) and my brothers are all older than I am and spread out/don't live very close to me. My friends are mostly too. I could have written your post too, when I was 26 except I had not met my husband yet, in many ways meeting him "saved" me/my life. Now I am going to have to work really hard to "catch up" and try to make a new life for myself with other/new friends, activities. Sometimes it appears quite daunting.

The last 5-10 years I have adopted the idea for myself, "it will be okay" and wish I had been able to tell/know that when I was 26. I try to imagine what I could have done differently when I was younger but always end up with the realization that I was doing the best I could at the time and what I did/did not do is what I did/did not do! We cannot really change the essence of who we are. Yes, we can try new things even though they are scary but a lot of things are not necessarily going to work out. I'm taking knitting lessons next week, for example and I have identified a knitting shop near where I am moving next month if knitting turns out to be a thing I want to pursue but I'm a computer researcher, reader, writer and I am doubtful knitting is going to be a new thing for me?

Who we meet and how we feel about them and how all that shakes down is similar I think, to what we like/do? We have to be open to new people coming into our lives and the surprise of their becoming friends and I think we have to even "look" for that to happen in order for it to happen but I don't think we can predict or change the details that much? You can use your non-dominant hand until you are pretty good at doing some things with it but you cannot actually change your handedness. So I am trying to recognize my handedness and work with it (and my imagination, humor, literary skills, honesty, and other traits), see what it attracts rather than go out and try to catch something we think we need. My Self knows what it needs and is on the case I just have to get out of its way/see if I can identify what it's trying for and help it?