Gratitude

I have real problems accepting nice things that are done for me, which is really just one of the threads in the ball of neuroses that makes up the core of my personality. Of course, who do I have to blame but my parents for this...

My father's birthday is last Friday. Every year I call him to wish him a happy birthday and the conversation goes something like this:

E-K: Dad, I wanted to call to wish you a happy birthday...

DAD: Yes, thank you. And I want to wish you lots of happiness and nachas from your children and may you live a long time to enjoy them and you should be healthy and good things should happen to you [etc, etc...]

So then I hang up and try to figure out how it happened yet again that he used my own weapon against me. My dad should have been a judo instructor. But really it underscores a basic trait that both he and my mother possess, and her mother possessed, which is the inability to just accept a kindness from someone without immediately needing to reciprocate, as some kind of weird quid pro quo system that seems more strict than the Cosa Nostra. And I think that it is really dysfunctional, but can't quite put my finger on why I do.