Yesterday I mailed in my passport for renewal. It expires in a month so it’s effectively useless right now anyway, so it shouldn’t matter. But I feel trapped in a way I didn’t before yesterday. I hate it.

Yep, I know that feeling. I renewed recently. I did not pay for expedited renewal and it took just short of 4 weeks. I was pretty happy with how fast it went.

If you're in the USA, one thing I learned only after renewing is that you can have the passport book renew off-cycle from a passport card. Since passports last 10 years, the ideal way to do it would be to renew your card at the 5 year mark. So when your card is being renewed, you could still travel internationally with your book. When your book is being renewed, you could still travel to Canada and Mexico with your card. After that, just renew each near their 10 year expiry date.