DON'T PANIC

systemd-less OS is possible. One such example is Alpine Linux. I would even recommend going one step further and learn about daemontools (made by DJB) and in turn to have a look at runsvdir which is part of busybox and is kind of reimplementation of the original idea.

Once you get to live systemd-less, you will realize how easy it is to tame any distro. Even Debian or Ubuntu work very nicely without systemd.

Bock to the roots! All the best!