Ok, I'm going to solve this once and for all with the (in)famous Pifflic logic that you all know and love.

Let's say that I have a fish. I take this fish and cut it into 1000 pieces. Now, I'm going to give you one piece of this fish every year. Despite the fact that the fish has become intolerably rotten by this point, after I give you the 1000th piece of fish on the 1000th year, I have to begin a new fish.

Even if we start in the middle of the fish, we're saying that I would have given that first piece of fish in the first year. Before that year, the fish was still cycling around aimlessly, serving no purpose.

This year we are finishing the second fish, and next year, we will begin the 3rd fish.