Call Me Crazy…

Call me crazy, but I love the first of a brand new month. I also enjoy Mondays — Monday mornings specifically — as unusual as that may sound. And when the first of the month falls on a Monday?

Color me content.

I’m not entirely sure why, but for as long as I can remember, the first of a shiny new month has enabled me to reset. At least, to think of resetting. It’s about beginnings. The sense of a clean slate, a blank page, a new shot at whatever we’re trying to accomplish. Generally speaking, when the first of the month rolls around, aren’t we hopeful that we can revive the resolve that may have slyly slipped away at mid-month or later?

Even as a teenager, I remember looking forward to the first of a new month because it meant I could restart my diet. I know, right? Diets. Women and body image. Women and food issues. Another reason to call me (and so many of us?) crazy, just a little bit.

Looking back, the constant dieting seems sad to me, of course. Especially because it reminds me of how many years — make that decades — I have focused on forcing my body into a shape that was never natural. Even when I succeeded by any standard measure, I still didn’t feel quite right in my skin; my view of myself was distorted. The extraordinary amount of time I devoted to body image battles, so common among women of all ages, is not lost on me.

Diets aside – in the years following divorce (in my 40s and later), I’ve experienced first-of-the-month enthusiasm for a reset. Not only was I then typically trying to balance healthy eating and exercise when possible, I was also raising my kids and working projects. At the beginning of each month, I jiggered my schedule and my household budget relying on the old-school method of taping calendars, worksheets, and lists to the fridge and kitchen cabinets. (Hello? Sound familiar to everyone?)

Specifically, I wrote down everything for all to see, and I was especially attentive to recording the details of expenses so as to stay in budget, see trends, identify trouble spots, and correct as needed. This was absolutely essential when I was single mothering my boys — man, could they eat! — and doing what I could to make things work.

Now, many years later, responsible only for myself, I need to do much the same — partly as a result of this past pandemic year’s impacts on income, a scenario no doubt playing out for millions of households, but also as a matter of a rise in costs despite these deep recessionary times. (Ugh. The prices of certain necessities have skyrocketed!)

As much as money matters gave me a headache a few days ago as I was making end-of-the month payments, on the first of the month – particularly on a Monday! – I am resolved to refigure my figures and embark on a new budgetary diet.

Ironically, my most variable expense are those food and household items, which means affecting my actual diet…

In other words, that’s where I can cut the fat (so to speak), and maybe as a result… reduce my pandemic poundage. (I know, I know. Not as obsessed about weight as when I was younger, but I do still care, and I care how any excess affects my health.)

But guess what? At the moment I don’t find that depressing. I’m gazing out the window at snow-covered branches, which is immeasurably tranquilizing. I’m enjoying the sensation of sitting inside one of those snow globes, as a few flurries wander their way down and drift about. As a person who has never been successful at traditional forms of meditation — and who couldn’t use meditation in these stressful times? — this moment, this Monday morning, this first of a new month, I feel just fine.

Of course, ask me in a few days how I feel about my “budget cuts” (and many more months ahead of living in a bubble, with or without the snow globe effect) and my attitude may not be the same. But just now, I’m floating on early morning energy and goodwill toward all, courtesy of the collision of a first of the month and a Monday. Call me crazy…

Do you love the newness of the first of the month? Do you love beginnings? Whatever you start or restart in terms of goals, how do you sustain the energy to follow through? Do diets (and budgets) fall into this category?

 

You May Also Enjoy

• My Reasons to Love the First of Each (Shiny) New Month

• “I See Fat People”

• The Body Politic: How Our Bodies Look vs. How We Use Them

• Contemplating Meditating. How Do YOU Meditate?