Dear Blue,
I’m finding it really difficult to respond to your post comparing a life of chosen frugality to a life of enforced frugality.
Ever since our first quaint online correspondence with each other more than a year back — do you remember your first e-mail to me? — I have thought of you fondly, as a friend. Even though we didn’t meet up when you were in India, you have been a regular presence in my online life.
So, I’m really embarrassed that I didn’t realize that you had money problems. It’s a tragedy of the tenuous nature of our online ties that it’s easy to believe that we know our friends, when we don’t really know them at all.
It isn’t easy, or nice, to have less money than you need. I have been there myself and I have seen, firsthand, what it does to people and to relationships. It take away much that is of value and teaches you too little, too late. I wish that I don’t ever have to deal with it. I wish that none of my friends have to ever deal with it.