Living on a limited, poverty level income isn’t easy. There are times towards the end of the month when you wonder if you can handle another Top Ramen dinner topped with canned green beans. Now, I really don’t have anything against canned green beans - I was raised on Del Monte for most of my growing up years. But every once in a while don’t you just long for that 16 ounce T-bone steak, baked potato smothered in sour cream, sautéed mushrooms and fresh asparagus? Or maybe in the morning you want that double shot Starbuck’s vanilla latte, and cranberry scone with extra pads of butter? And sometimes don’t you just want to shout out, “Life Sucks” when you watch your affluent friends and neighbors head out for their morning coffee or shopping and then returning later with enough food to feed the state of Delaware?

O.K., so maybe it’s not all that bad. But I must admit that on occasion I get a little jealous of my affluent friends for their lavish lifestyle and in those more reflective moments I can recall when I behaved and lived my life similar to how they live their lives now. I just never considered that money would be a problem. If I had it, I spent it and if I didn’t, it didn’t seem to matter. Money was always available, or so I thought. I always had my Visa card and my gas card, and my Starbucks card, and my Bon card, and my Sears card, and 17 other cards that I could pull out of my wallet whenever I needed something. I was hooked on spending.

But life has a way of throwing us curve balls and sometimes we don’t pay attention to what we really need because we have been living in denial of what is real. When my son was a little boy I use to read to him the story of “The Velveteen Rabbit,” by Margery Williams. It’s a story about a little boy who receives a velveteen rabbit for Christmas. Ostracized by most of the other toys in the nursery which all believed that they were “real,” one day the rabbit asks his friend, the Skin Horse “what is REAL?” The Skin Horse answered: “Real isn’t how you are made . . . It’s a thing that happens to you . . . When a child loves you . .. REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” He went on to say, “It doesn’t happen all at once . . . You become. It takes a long time.”

Today I feel more like that Velveteen Rabbit, stuffed with sawdust, out-of-date, and I “should never be mentioned in modern circles.” However, I also feel more REAL - more true to myself and who I am. I don’t have a lot of money, I have cut up all my charge cards except for one in case of emergency, I live a simpler life, I take better care of myself, I have two beautiful sons who continue to amaze me everyday, I have a wealth of interesting and compassionate friends, and I am happy. So the hell with regretting canned beans… Bring them on!