When I ask Ope to do this interview, she cooks me the most incredible meal of fish, asparagus, and cauliflower rice followed by a homemade apple crumble. On a Monday night, in the middle of winter. If that is not enough to convince you of how lucky anyone who calls her a friend is, I will tell you that almost every conversation I have makes me both laugh and cry and that I never leave without feeling completely in awe of her. Ope is quick, she never misses a beat and comes back to you with intelligence, humor and authenticity that just cannot be rivaled. We met at a job we have since both left, and Ope has been at another job while taking classes and working on making jewelry in a shared studio. With the intention to build up her skill set and start putting the jewelry she makes out into the world, Ope remains a true creative and dives into the things that interest her. We talked about her new project - an advice podcast! - and as always, where we are in life and what it all might mean.
What is 24 about for you?
24 is about trying not to be a passenger in my own life. I am trying to take charge of some smaller things, and my hope is that by taking charge of the little things, I’ll be empowered to take charge of bigger things either this year or later, like my career or my relationships.
Do you feel a pressure to be at a certain stage in your life by 25?
I don’t know. People are always focused on figuring out who they are and what they are by certain ages, but I think you learn that stuff in hindsight, so I’m trying to focus on what I do and what I am interested in. So, if I look back, instead of thinking like, “Wow, 24 was a good year and fuck every other year,” I hope to be able to look back and say “Well, I did something I was interested in, I tried something new.” I want to feel like I’m improving something each year.
That’s a really cool way to look at having a goal or measuring a year’s passage, by what you are learning.
Yeah, the last year of my life has really been the time when I finally felt like I’m not practicing for something, I’m not preparing for any kind of next step in life, I just am. I’m just living my life and figuring things out regardless of time.
And you are taking a new project really seriously, in addition to your continued jewelry making?
Yep, it’s a podcast called, “The Long Answer.” It’s an advice podcast, but beefed up a little bit. You can ask me about a weird situation with your friend you don’t know how to deal with, a logistical issue in your life, your finances. I would love for someone to ask me a personal finance question. I’m going to incorporate research and interviews and stuff so the answers are a mixture of hard and anecdotal knowledge. I’m also kind of using it as an excuse to look up weird stuff and interview people I think are funny or interesting.
If I can convince 3 people I’ve never met before to ask me questions then I’ll be happy. I’m trying to see an idea through and take it seriously. I’ve realized that I have done a lot of things for other people that I didn’t necessarily care about, but I took those things seriously and did a good job, so what would happen if I actually tried to take my own idea really seriously?
Right, that’s really hard to actually put something out there that you want to do for other people to see.
If you have something you are passionate about, you eventually have to contend with that obstacle of claiming it publicly and putting yourself out into the world as someone who does this thing. It’s unavoidable.
I have really high expectations for myself and I think it’s really easy for me to do something in the comfort of my bedroom and then just never show anybody what I am doing. Because when you show what you do to someone else, you’re opening yourself up to so much more that you have to deal with, but at the same time you close yourself off to a lot if you keep everything to yourself.
From hour to hour in my day I feel differently about my life. I take pride in my sensitivity but at the same time I overthink things like crazy, and I hope to get to a place where I am a little less moveable. I will have an idea and think it through to its every possible end and exhaust the idea before I even start and then I just don’t do anything. Like I’ll think of an idea for a dress to make, and in my head I’ll make the dress, I will put it on, it will fit poorly, someone will spill wine on it at a party, and so I just never even make the dress.
So what about the times when you do make the dress, what gets you to go through with an idea?
Well, it’s much more exciting to me to think about a project as seeking, and if I find something or I don’t find anything during that process, it’s still better than not trying at all. I just don’t want to be all about my thoughts or vague ideas with nothing behind them.
Sometimes, I’ll look back at the archives of people I admire, designers or writers or whoever, and realize that the first things they did were usually pretty basic or haphazard or unrefined. I have to remember that everyone starts out somewhere and gets better from there. I’m so protective of my ego and misconceptions and I need to let that go.
Is your goal to make a career out of your projects and passions?
What I have learned over the past several months of thinking about my career is that I have a lot of trouble going to a place, checking out for 8 hours, and then going home to do what I love on the side. I think whatever types of things I end up doing, I’ll really need to care. I am a pretty transparent person and if I am not passionate about something I am ultimately going to bail on it. That said, I’m pretty flexible about what I do for work, because I have too many things that interest me. I’ll probably always have little things I do on the side, it’s just so nice to have breaks and be able to think about something other than whatever I just did all day.
Do you think living New York affects your lifestyle and mindset?
Definitely, because there are so many choices here and a culture of people really examining who they are and what they want to do. Maybe it makes me more ambitious or feel more pressure to be good at something. But at the same time, there’s no way to tell how my goals or values would differ if I lived somewhere else. I agonize over every choice I make, but I appreciate the ability to make those choices.
And how do you navigate all of the options available to you?
I seek advice a lot and it’s not even cool how I do it. Like, I’ll be on Gchat at 1PM, or let’s be real, 1AM and chat my older brother and be like, “Dude, what am I doing with my life right now? Help!” I’m pretty young, you know? Sometimes I still crave somebody to just tell me what to do.
Honestly, I also call my mom a lot. She’s a very grounding presence in my life. It’s kind of funny actually, the first time that my mom was ever like “I’d rather you figure these things out without me” was after I turned 24. In her really nice and gentle way, she basically was like “You're a grown ass person, so please find a way to figure this stuff out without always talking to me first. Why are you waiting for the bus in the cold? Because you didn't manage your finances well enough to take a cab home. Like what are you doing with that money your job is paying you?”
Shoes.
Yeah seriously. Such cute shoes.