These are things which I've conceded in order not to argue with my grandmother. In previous days, I would have protested. Today, I turned the other cheek.
To send away the caregiver in the morning because she didn't like her.
To withdraw $1,000 in cash from the ATM when she is deep in debt. This is actually harmful to her, so I only said yes while asking her power of attorney to remove all the money from her account and then withdrew $300, so that I could print a receipt which demonstrated that her account was nearly empty while safekeeping the remaining money.
To walk 3 Km and back in cold winter rain to donate old clothes from my grandfather to the Salvation Army. I went downstairs and threw them in the garbage. I used the time I bought to go to the gym for a second time in the day.
To shower sitting down on a chair, because that's what my grandfather did and "it's the right way to do it".
To test every key in the house to see which door it belonged to, even though we had working copies of all the doors.
It was actually a good day. I'm writing this next to her, in the den, each doing our own thing. The energy feels relaxed after days of tension. It makes me wonder: I learned to not compromise on truth from direct experience, now the lesson seems to be the opposite.
Sometimes, when you have a north star, you navigate towards it for so long that it ends up directly on top of you. You advance a bit so it's slightly behind you, you turn around again, it ends up behind you. You backtrack and end up going in circles. You get stuck by the commitment of following the north star. It is time to navigate against the north star, to learn the movement in opposition of truth (lowercased truth in any case).