As for finding clients put off by your age, one possible way is to enlist the aid of an older person to do talking? I knew someone in high school that did that when he ran a training service. Also, don't mention your age.
People are always telling me to find a problem and solve it; get to know some group of people. If I only knew a group of people, heh. Or people.
If it makes you feel any better, I'm much older than you and have been doing programming 'professionally' for several years, like, as a career an' everything, and I feel just as lost as you. 'Cept now I'm old, embittered, and am looking for ways to just not work, take a break and go back to doing things rather than spending time at work.