The decision

Here's the rule, in one sentence. I decide what I give, I say it, I give it whole, and I don't pay for it twice with guilt.

It has four parts and each one has a chapter. Deciding is chapter 20, the amount written down, a visit with a start and an end, a call, a list of jobs. Saying is chapters 16 and 21, to her as a fact and to your siblings as a list with a specific ask attached. Giving it whole is chapters 6 and 7, present in the room because the ending is already settled. Not paying twice is chapters 4 and 5, the should on Thursday answered with the amount and not with a visit.

Three plans, for the three moments the guilt is strongest. There's decent evidence that a plan of the form when this, then that, made in advance, makes the that far more likely to happen than a general intention does.

When she says, oh, are you going, at four, then I say, see you Wednesday on the phone, Mum, and I go.

When the should arrives midweek, then I say to myself, Sunday and Wednesday are decided, and I do the thing I was doing.

When I catch myself doing the sums about my brother, then I ask myself whether I've asked him for a specific thing, and if I haven't, I write down the thing and the day I'll ask.

What to expect. The first Sunday with a named end will feel cold, and it isn't, and she'll adjust faster than you will. The first Thursday you don't add a visit will feel like a failure, and by the third it will feel like a Thursday. The sibling conversation will go worse in your head than in the room, usually. The guilt will not vanish. It'll turn up on schedule for a while, and you'll answer it, and it'll come a little quieter each time, because it's a feeling that was being fed and isn't now. And the visits, I'd expect, will get better, because you'll be in them.

That's the decision. Not to care less. To care on purpose.