The universe is old

Actually it's very young, like a baby young compared to what it could be

Life SHOULD exist

That's a very bold statement without any evidence to it

the fact that we haven't found any real evidence of it yet is bizarre

You could call it bizarre if you had some data where there should be a lot of evidence. We don't have that data, just fantasies.

Some fundamental part of how we understand the universe is wrong.

Likely most of it. Or even our "understanding" as a concept is not there yet. I mean our "understanding" was meant to find food, prey, etc. And we were pretty bad at that.