The statement "my options on who will hire me are kind of limited" is a bit misleading. Limited compared to whom? Your options are abundant compared to most people.
It sounds like you are waiting on a fantasy position that has both interesting work and pays at least the same as your current position, which you have 13 years of experience in. That's not usually how life works. There are trade-offs.
If you want to do a different type of work that you don't have any professional experience in, you are going to have to take a pay cut. As you mentioned, you're fortunate to be making 3x what you need. It's up to you whether it's worth "only" making 2x what you need in order to do work you find more engaging.
This is not a unique circumstance. People make this trade-off all the time. Maybe talk to some people who did.
> It sounds like you are waiting on a fantasy position that has both interesting work and pays at least the same as your current position, which you have 13 years of experience in. That's not usually how life works. There are trade-offs.
I mean this with all the respect in the world, but no shit. That's what I'm frustrated about. I feel like the entire thing I wrote was specifically because I am aware of these tradeoff. Just because the tradeoffs exist doesn't mean I have to like them.
I know that my dream job doesn't really exist, at least not in numbers large enough to even bother considering, and I'm not naive enough to really think that pivoting to another career will suddenly solve all my problems and frustrations.
It sounds like you are waiting on a fantasy position that has both interesting work and pays at least the same as your current position, which you have 13 years of experience in. That's not usually how life works. There are trade-offs.
If you want to do a different type of work that you don't have any professional experience in, you are going to have to take a pay cut. As you mentioned, you're fortunate to be making 3x what you need. It's up to you whether it's worth "only" making 2x what you need in order to do work you find more engaging.
This is not a unique circumstance. People make this trade-off all the time. Maybe talk to some people who did.