Tell me it’s not too late.

I recently moved from one big city to another for a new job, and yet nearly find myself/wonder if I’m still in the same position I left in. In that despite the friendships I forged, I still felt alone; I haven’t quite found my people just yet. (Which is wild; I went from FL to TX and now to CA; I have my core group of close friends, but none of them are local.)

I had a lot of friends in my former place, but had been there for so long and watched certain friendships grow and others deteriorate (which is fine). It’s funny/sad because I’m the glue for a lot of my friends groups there, but here we are.

I don’t usually have trouble making friends, but I’ll be 40 sooner than later; still don’t have a family; thought I’d be married with two kids by 35, but here we are. I know everyone’s different. I’m currently at a book festival and hoping to make a friend– despite being in a huge city before, it was hard to make friends with similar interests, and the only ones I had were mostly online. I’m also queer and haven’t had a lot of queer friends; I’m hoping this changes since I moved from a conservative to progressive state. I’ve never been able to find my people; I’m hoping this changes here. Don’t get me wrong– I had friends with mutual interests, but the things I was extremely passionate about (books, musicals, queer things, etc) I’d usually do alone (again, not for lack of trying).

I know these sort of things only get harder as we get older, and there have been so many abrupt changes
and transitions for me in this past month. I also recently put myself out there, with all of my rejection sensitive dysphoria, and was too late/ wasn’t an option/ wasn’t chosen / learned after the fact, so I’ve had all that deal with, which affects my ability to trust as a whole. I’m all by myself and am still doing things, hoping to make new friends, and know it’ll take some time even with my magnetic personality. I can’t (and wouldn’t) want to force things. I guess I’m posting here because I want to think I can still have hope when “starting over” later in life. I always knew the other major city wouldn’t be my last stop, but it also took me a lot longer than I thought to leave. (Not for lack of trying.)

It’s only been one week. I still need to settle in. Please tell me there’s hope; yes, I can choose myself and do all the self-care, and yes, I’m putting myself out there to meet others with similar interests, but it can still be fairly lonely. Yes, I’m going to seek trauma-based therapy. I’m still rather anxious and don’t want to be Too Much. (I was told I wasn’t Too Much, but that person didn’t choose me, so I don’t know what to believe anymore. 😅 Yes, I know my worth. But… there are so many levels to this.)

Everything has happened so quickly that I had wondered if I’d made a mistake; I recently moved from living in a house with my roommate/landlord to having moved two bedrooms worth of stuff into a studio apartment (cost of living, y’all). I think I’ll be okay once I settle in, and I think with training and practice my new job will be okay, but it’s been a /lot/ in the past week. Please tell me I’ll make it through all of this. 😅

tl;dr: I moved from one big city to another by myself, again, and have had so many things happen at once that it’s overwhelming. I have to make new friends again, but don’t want to trust too much because I was foolish and recently got burned. I feel like I’m running out of time because I’m almost 40 and everyone else is married/has had kids, etc, and my parents at getting older. I’m constantly thinking of too many things at once. I just hope I’ll make it through this.