I am really worried about Gmail. I am stuck to it and I do not know a decent alternative. Every other service has an apple equivalent and I can live without. iCloud email exists but I do not know how good it is.
Proton is almost there. I actually prefer their web app to Gmail. The only things stopping me from fully endorsing it atm is the lack of a good Android app (current one doesn't have threaded emails) and no snooze. The app situation is supposed to be resolved sometime this year. Tbd on snooze though. They do have scheduled delete right now so not sure what the hold up is on that.
Just run your own mail server on a Pi at home and get your ISP to set up a PTR record for you, assuming you are on a static IP. Mox is good and outputs all of the instructions for DNS etc.: