Life didn't "happen" here, you designed divergent paths. This is I know largely a semantic nitpick, but I think this kind of phrasing belies the most common sort of problem that keeps people from doing things like what the OP suggests. In a way it often feels like "life happens" to us, and certainly in some cases that's largely true (unforeseen health complications or accidents for instance), but marriages and jobs and houses and friends really shouldn't feel like that. And if they do, it probably bears a bit of introspection and deliberation to ensure you're not just hurtling through milestones that seem age appropriate and are instead deliberately moving towards the best life you can imagine designing.
Note none of this is commentary on your specifics, of course I know next to nothing about you. I'm only attempting to focus on the phrasing there, and how I think it is indicative of a very common trap we can fall into wherein we can tend to relinquish agency and thus without thinking slide away from the things we cherish (such as friends close enough to be a kind of soul mate).