Apathy, the rubber screen

There’s an invisible screen between me and the Thing, made of some kind of rubbery material. Every time I try to reach past the screen and Do It, my hand bounces back as if I’m trying to punch through a trampoline. I tell myself, Just do it. Just ignore the rubber screen and grab the Thing and do it.

And yet my hand bounces back.

I sit and stare at it for a while. Am I crazy? How can I not do the Thing when my brain tells me to? When my whole being knows that I have to? Is it laziness? Rebelliousness? Depression? What?

And the day passes.

Snap out of it, they say. You can do it.

Yeah? Well, then you do it.

Oh, I couldn’t possibly. I’m not smart/gifted/good like you. But you can. You can do the Thing I don’t know anything about, because that’s the trope we like to tell each other and call it Comfort.

Well I can’t. Look at how I can’t. Look at all these months when I didn’t, because there’s a rubbery screen.

I can’t see a screen.

I know. Neither can I. But it’s there, and my hand can’t reach through it.

LOL.

I mean it.

LOL. It’ll be okay. You’re so good at everything, you can do it.

And the weeks pass.