Accept

This one has a lot of different meanings. It was the Verb of the Week at the Art Journal Caravan. Accepting gifts has never been one of my best features. If someone wants to give me something my mind quickly calculates how I'm going to give back. My friend says that is because of my upbringing "by the book" and I hadn't thought of that. My mother said.. if someone brings you food, you must never return the bowl empty. If someone gives you a gift, you must hand write a thank you note within 24 hours. If someone gives you... and on and on and on. My friend says my thinking is, if all that is attached to the gift, just don't accept the gift and you are off the hook.
That just sounds awful put that way. I am generous to a fault, I share everything I have with anyone who wants it. Sometimes I give away things I really want because someone else wants them. I will give my time freely when I really need it. But I cannot receive. I like gifts.. I really do. But I always feel so compelled to give it back, to not accept it, because "I don't need it".. "I already have one" anything you want to put there.
Since the Art Journal Caravan is about looking inside oneself, this is one of the uglies I'd like to cure before I get much older. Of course I'll be perfect when the end comes if I keep doing these self-examination exercises. I will have purged all my faults and I will be a perfect human being.