[wrs]

If you let go of something, it will stop accelerating because there is no longer a force on it, and start following its geodesic. You have to apply a force to make it not do that (like, by standing on the Earth so the ground can push you upward). The natural path (geodesic) of an object near the Earth plotted from a purely space-like (Newtonian) perspective accelerates toward the Earth. But the point of GR is to not have a purely space-like perspective.

(I made up the waffly term “purely space-like” to not have to explain what an inertial frame is, not sure if that’s going to help.)