hindsight2020

Depends on one's perspective on "recovery". To some, the OPs return to aviation is a case of relapse, not recovery. Stating this return to the cockpit as the right financial decision for the OP and/or for the long term stability of his/her vocational choices, assumes facts not in evidence. What is clear from these anecdotes is that, if you're unhappy in an office setting, you're unhappy in an office setting. If that means that your life choices are therefore limited to non-sedentary occupations that suffer from high income-volatility, then that's just merely the unfortunate opportunity cost you'll have to face in life upon your aversion to office work. Nothing particularly good, bad or indifferent about it, just life choices.

No free lunch in life. It'd be great if these choices weren't so mutually exclusive, and perhaps to a statistical few, they are indeed not. For the majority though, it does seem like a perennial exercise in trading off time for money, in a quantity not too great to afford no time to do what you really want, or too little money that it affords you not what you really want.

To the OP, sounds like the answer has already been sort of addressed by him/her already. The inference to "life would have been different had I lived in domicile" was made in passing, but it bears incredible relevance. Want to continue to struggle between two jobs, neither of which provide domestic comfort nor vocational contentment at the same time? Move to domicile and presto, problem solved. Time and money balance. Works for some, not for others. For the OP, it sounds like that might be the missing piece.

Good luck. Life's too short to be unhappy, and Lord knows there's no time to be in your late 30s restarting financial retirement plans like a regional slave.