Recognize that your situation is not the usual one and the usual goals and dreams of your age group may not fit. You may be more in sync with most others your age later on or you may have found something more compelling for you.
Respond to your partner's death and the change in your lifestyle in the way that is best for you instead of letting peer pressure and expectations push you around.
Consider talking with others in situations similar to yours.
Consider initiating ongoing conversations about your partner with her friends and family not only as a way of keeping her with you but as a help in considering how she would change and grow with time.

Take some time to creatively consider different lifestyle possibilities. Consider what is really important to you at this time of life. Although our culture considers status to be important, one academician who lost her partner left a prestigious university to join the faculty of a less well known college, where she felt more valued and experienced fewer demands.
Plan this phase of life, instead of the rest of your life. It may make sense to have a particular schedule based on children's needs, but remember that those needs will change. Also, you may well choose to have other relationships in the second half of your life. Figure out what makes sense now but think of it as only part of a plan.

Don't make any big changes for the period of time when the feelings are most intense. A job that may not seem meaningful after a partner's death may look attractive later on.

Take your time. Although family and friends may urge you to simplify your life, there is no need to do anything before you are ready and before you decide what you want to do.
Consider staying at least a year where you have been living with your partner and take your time in sorting through and discarding his things. Your home and his things hold precious memories. The change is enormous. Keep some elements of stability.
Ask for help. If, at age 72, you have never put up storm windows, and have no interest in trying, ask someone who has been wondering if there is anything he can do, or hire someone to do it. You don't have to do everything you did and everything your partner did.
Consider what roles or activities might be open to you and whether they are attractive to you. Whether it is joining the Peace Corps, thinking of yourself as the family matriarch and organizing family reunions, or joining a senior travel group, the closing of one thread of your life puts you in the position of considering other possibilities.

Don't let your children, if you have them, or others take over your life. Although your partner's death will be a big adjustment, you need not give up being in charge of your life.