A company of my own

(Not a post about venture capitalism)

Hello and I hope you’re having a lovely day to anyone reading.

The idea of what constitutes ‘my own company’ has been plaguing my mind these past two weeks. I’ve been staying in my brother’s flat in London, meaning I have spent more time on my own recently than I have since leaving university. When thinking about how to make the best of my time here, I started thinking about what it really means to take ownership of my own company as an adult.

Taking ownership of your own company is an entirely variable idea, changing meaning depending on the autonomy of a person, or their reliance on other people for fulfilment. The childhood tendency for time alone to equal freedom to indulge in things I normally hide is one which persists for me. However, this freedom is now fraught with ‘adult’ expectations for time alone to mean creativity, productivity, or as a test for my emotional viability and ability to properly ‘function’. This is a long-handed way of saying, if spend too much time watch tv, Ursula feel guilty.

For me, real ownership of your own company means both valuing time spent alone and making sure I carve out space to be as creative or unproductive as I need. I think maturation involves an understanding that sometimes productivity as an inessential exercise. It has the potential to be both liberating and entrapping, eliciting both joy and self-defacement. Understanding how to find this balance is not something I expect to do, nor is it something I claim to know. This letter, after all, is more about refuge than prescriptive wisdom. The inessential nature of productivity is the key to one’s ability to find happiness in it, to seek out the creation of something where or when you don’t need to.

The thing I have repeated to myself these past two weeks, when excessive time alone has enabled daily meditations about the state of my life, is the following:

Time by myself must be defined by the quality of my own company, rather than the absence of other people.

I don’t think I’m out of line by saying that learning to lessen the value of other peoples’ opinions of you is a pretty universal part of becoming a ‘real adult’. This is part of the growth and maturity which comes with personal development, not occurring at any specific age or stage of life.

Where I live feels unsettled. My understanding of my sexuality and gender feels unsettled. My surety in my own abilities feels unsettled. I feel like when questions about the core things which define your perception of self come up, it’s impossible to continue your default routine without according confusion. Every question of my own abilities, and my understanding that I’m constantly honing my craft, is met with another: are you letting the hope of future improvement permit your present inadequacy? Who fucking knows.

Up next is the obligatory pop culture portion of the letter!

I was recently watching The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon bad, I know, and spoilers ahead) and was struck by a plotline about Mrs Maisel’s mother, who spontaneously moves to Paris after feeling unwanted by both her husband and daughter. The story about the joy she found in her solitude was not a new one, but still deeply affected me. It highlighted my seeming inability to be satisfied with myself, alone, and to see meaning in my life separate from my connections with other people (most particularly romance and friendships). I felt complete and utter envy of this character who’d managed to carve out a place for herself which discounted those who discounted her. A company of her own – and I wanted it!

I’m hoping that a true company of my own is something I learn to covet as I grow. Something that I can appreciate when I have it, but not feel bound by.

(If this letter felt a little more ramble-y and disjointed than usual, well…too bad, I won’t apologise for my writing.) The aptly named ‘patron saint of feelings’ Olivia Rodrigo really said it best when she said ‘their beauty’s not my lack’.

Thanks so much to anyone who took the time to read this. Love to you all.

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“That's what it will be like when I'm dead,” Duck thought. “The pond alone, without me.”

Death sometimes read minds. “When you're dead, the pond will be gone, too — at least for you.”

- Wolf Erlbruch, Duck, Death and the Tulip