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Olivia Callari (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

It was September 2021 and I was getting ready for another day at work. Summer was ending, and I was at a three-lane crossroads with myself. I had just taken a semester off from university, abandoned my five-year career goal of becoming a real estate agent and was mourning the end of a three-year relationship. I remember getting up that morning feeling more sluggish than usual, with an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and a racing mind that could lead a NASCAR race. It was the first day I admitted to myself that I had absolutely no sense of direction, the first day where I questioned my purpose on this earth. I never believed when people said that life can change in the blink of an eye, until it did. It wasn’t the type of change that was visible, which can be equally overwhelming, but the kind of change that makes you look at everything you built and question whether you really want it. 

When I was younger, I was a performer. I sang, I danced, I acted, I created art and music. My dream was to become a famous actor and prove to myself that what I was performing would make a successful career one day. I always knew there was more out there for me than a conventional profession, one that was more easily attainable than pursuing an artistic career with a lot of success. The hopes and dreams that I had when I was a kid had left me once I reached high school, the crowds I was surrounding myself with did not believe that the life I had wanted for myself was “realistic,” and it was a very judgemental environment. I quickly conformed to their standards and settled on the idea that I would be a top-selling real estate agent, and that was all for me. Of course, this career path is far from settling, but it never felt truly fulfilling for me. Years and years of conditioning my reality to fit that goal also brought so much time where I was not in tune with my creativity, nor with the dream I had as a child. I lost my passion for the arts, and I lost my ability to let life happen for me instead of to me. 

Since that September moment only a mere six months ago, I transformed into someone I never thought I would be. I did not think it was possible, until it was, and then everything outside and inside me turned. The epiphany of that morning sparked a need for change, and then some. My entire inner world was asking me to follow a path I had not chosen, as it was reappearing with a lot of appeal. I decided to fall back into the arts and deemed it a risk, but I had nothing to lose. I applied to acting schools and began monologuing in my free time. I became consumed by creativity and looked at the things around me, and with each day, I allowed the things that didn’t serve my new purpose to dissipate. My hopes and dreams had changed within such a short amount of time, and with that change I was starting to feel totally different. I was learning a lot more about myself and what I wanted, and the people around me couldn’t understand why I was different all of a sudden. There was so much that was new to me that I couldn’t possibly continue to carry all of the old ways of doing things, which shocked others and myself. 

In this moment, I sit here, writing about how the change of my hopes and dreams brought a change in myself, and think about the person I once was. I do not know her, I can only remember what she was like, but she is no longer me. Of course I mourned her, but I know that she helped me get to where I am today. Change is constant, it’s only obvious when you are called to it. The need to fulfil a new purpose meant altering what didn’t fit it. 

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Olivia is a film and television certificate student at NYU Tisch and a recent graduate from Dawson College in cinema and communications. Having grown up in Montreal, Quebec, Olivia has surrounded herself with different cultures and means of creative expression, with hopes to one day incorporate it into her film and television work. Through writing and other forms of artistic expression, Olivia has a natural desire to help others overcome their inhibitions and reach their fullest potential.