Why does meditation feel so hard at first?

Partly because sitting still and paying attention reveals how busy your mind already was, which is a sign you are noticing rather than a sign you are bad at it. The other reason is structural: meditation returns almost no signal from inside a session, so there is nothing to check yourself against while you are in it. That absence is what sends the question toward your posture and your hands, which are the only parts you can actually observe.