My enlightening moment about general relativity: apples do not fall on the ground, instead, the earth is inflating, and the inflation of the earth is accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2. Eventually, the ground catches the apple.

Of course, you are going to tell me that the earth is not inflating, obviously, because it is still the same size after so many years.

But here is the trick: the earth is inflating at the same rate as spacetime contracts. If the earth didn't inflate, the contraction of spacetime would have collapsed it into a black hole.

Note: It is related to Einstein's elevator thought experiment. Here, the inflating earth replaces the rocket powered elevator.

Note 2: If the idea of an inflating earth bothers you, I suggest you start considering that the earth is flat, seriously! Flat Earthers took Einstein's thought experiment quite literally and consider the Earth to be a disk that is continuously accelerated upwards. And in fact, if free fall trajectories were parabolic, that would be the correct explanations. In reality, because the earth is not flat, free fall trajectories are elliptic, though it is only apparent on a large scale.