You wasted no time

but I would have recommended Google Pixel as well. I'm on my second Pixel (8) and bought them for my wife and son as well (7). I have a fair number of apps installed and do some mobile gaming as well and have not experienced any issues.
One thing people confuse is storage RAM and system memory. RAM is the total storage on the device and is important for how many files you want to store. That will include apps, audio, video and documents. If you're not a gamer, 64GB can be enough. If you play games and shoot video, 64GB would likely not be enough. I have 100GB used out of 128GB available. As they say in computing, you can never have too much memory.
System RAM is how much is reserved to run the OS and your apps. Less expensive phones will have lower amounts of system RAM and this is when you can get into trouble having too many apps installed or using an app that has high memory requirements. 4GB would be typical for a budget phone and higher end models can have 12GB to 16GB. My Pixel 8 has 8GB.
The 9a has similar spec to the 8 (8GB system RAM and 128 or 256GB storage) but uses the newer Tensor G4 processor. I think the 9a should fill your needs fine.