Sorry to hear that didn’t work out. My wife got her “new” 128 GB SE last time Apple had them on the refurb store here in the States, IIRC around Oct. I’ve never seen them come back since. Lucky her.
One thing you could contemplate is just getting a new 2020 SE right now. It’s inexpensive for sure and all the reviews I’ve seen say that basically it’s a great device unless you want a really large screen or you do high-end photography (on a phone that is). Then, if half a year down the road you realize you just cannot come to terms with its size (like I did with my 6), you could trade it for a brand new iPhone 12" in the 5.4" size. There’s been pretty consistent rumors about that device size and its specs for many months now. It won’t be inexpensive as the SE, but it will be a tad smaller.
There’s a whole bunch of hands-on reviews linked from this page.