Title says it all.

I have DM'd games for about 2 and half years after getting into the hobby with an irl group of friends I use work with. Life stuff happened for all of us to varying degrees; promotions, new job, emergencies, family stuff, etc. All understandable and nothing I hold against any of them or myself. It does suck because for a year and half we did a homebrew campaign we made that ran from level 3 to 17 and me being the DM they were only a handful of sessions away from the BBEG and end of the campaign. Inbetween the main session we would do oneshots and try other modules and stuff too. Well we haven't been able to meet online or in person for close to six months now for any game and a few of my players have just lost interest it's been so long.

It hurts cause it was my first campaign ever and these are really the only players I've ever known, we all had fun and thankfully we made it through all the player's character arcs but the final mainstory arc and conclusion to the campaign seem to be unattainable now. I poured my heart and soul into all of this making a campaign, NPCs, working with the players on their backstories and character arcs, make interesting and challenging encounters, the group of villainous world ending dragons I came up with and to look back at everything it just makes it hurt more that we won't ever get to finish it or even start a new game with my players.

They were good players and some of them had their problems sure but they were as new to the hobby as I was. We are all of similar age between 25-32 so I feel like I got in ttrps late in life and missed my chance to start with new players or junk. I've tried joining other online games these past few weeks or going to my local gameshop but no real success.

So, how do you do it? How do you cope with the death of a campaign or lose of an awesome group of players?