I love the first of the month.
This is an edited transcription of my Morning Pages entry from September 1st, 2021.
The first of anything gives me so much much to look forward to. The first day of school. The first date. The first dance. The first day of camp. So much to anticipate. It’s like a blank slate.
There’s something about a blank slate. Nothing to hold you back. No baggage. Pure possibilities. You can do whatever you want without fear that you’ll upset your status quo.
I wonder if that’s why we have rituals celebrating firsts. Weddings celebrate the start of a couple’s new life together. Matrimony gives them a reset button to wipe the slate clean. That’s why they throw a big party. “Hey! Remember when we were terrible people? Neither do we! Let’s drink!”
Brides wear white, the clean slate color. Though nowadays no bride is a “clean slate” in the original, virginal sense, white still fits because it’s a new beginning for their marriage. Plus who doesn’t look great in white?
Birthdays are a reset. So what if you barely showed up for your 37th year. Now you’re 38! You’ve got a whole new year to make something of yourself! New Year’s celebrates the closing of one year and the opening of the next. Maybe that’s why we’re so happy on New Years. Because we’re all closet optimists, who can only see a year of possibilities, blind to all the negatives, including the hangover tomorrow morning.
Even funerals are a sort of reset. If you believe in the afterlife, you could see it as a complete reset. “I didn’t make much of this life, but thank god I can start fresh in heaven! It feels a bit hot… just me?” Even if you don’t believe in the afterlife, it’s still an acknowledgment of an end for the funeral attendees. They must let go of the deceased. They must drop the baggage they held on to while the dead was still alive. What good is a grudge when the person you’re grudging against doesn’t know it? Or if they’re in the afterlife, they can’t do anything about it?
Endings allow us to change direction. On August 31st we say “not a bad month” but on September 1st we can say “…but this month’s gonna rock!” We need a way to acknowledge life’s ends, the rock bottoms. Only then can we start our ascension towards the surface. Without hitting rock bottom, we are still falling. Think of how stressful it is when you’re in debt. That feeling of “will I get out from under this?” That hopelessness influences your decision making. “I have to keep this terrible job, even if all roads lead to a dead end.” That’s why there’s bankruptcy. Or, if not a job, perhaps a marriage.
Divorce is an acknowledgment of marital rock bottom. A matrimonial bankruptcy. There’s no ceremony for divorce, although I imagine the two parties have their own ceremonies, involving heavy drinking, casual sex, or both. Something to wipe the slate clean so we can begin anew.
In divorce and bankruptcy, both parties admit it’s over, and in doing so are able to carve a path back to rightness. Bankruptcy allows the debtor a chance to wipe their hands of their failed business and create a new one. Same with divorce and its religious extension, the annulment. “This didn’t work. But better luck next time!”
Although both the divorcee and the bankrupt face additional challenges in forging a road back. We shouldn’t stigmatize either event, though it would also be unwise to glorify it. Both the divorcee and the bankrupt suffer a decrease in their worthiness; the divorcee may find it more difficult to secure a mate and the bankrupt may find it harder to secure a loan. This ensures that people don’t jump to that last resort without some sort of thinking or work to prevent it.
But we shouldn’t demonize the divorce or the bankruptcy. They are good. They are cathartic. We must acknowledge the end in order to begin again. Chris Rock said that Lorne Michaels told him, “You can’t make an entrance if you never leave.” Shutting that door means you can open another. That is hope. And that’s the feeling I have at the beginning of every month. I hope you do too.
