Juliana Elia

Are you an older sibling? Did you have the opportunity and pleasure of shaping the mind and well-being of another human far earlier than you should have been able to? That was me. My name is Juliana and I was a terrible sister.  As a young girl, I spent a lot of my time at home with my little sister. We were unsupervised in a normal 90's kid kind of way, I think . One of my favorite games to play was what we called, "The Princess and the Slave." The premise of the game was, I was the princess and my little sister was the slave. Pretty simple. I'd say something like, "Fetch me my slippers," or "Your Majesty is parched and is in need of some water." And little Angelina (that's my sister's name), would hop up and do all that I commanded. I had it made. She was thrilled that I would play with her and I was thrilled to be the boss. I was born bossy. But I'll never forget the day my little sister stood up to me, the princess .  It was a norma...

 Story Time: It was the early 90's. A young 7 year old Me sat on the hot bus after a long day at school. My stop was the 2nd to get off so my bus time was brief. I never knew how much of a luxury that was in bus riding terms. Every morning, the bus would pick me up from right across the street from my house at 7:30am. It would make one additional stop to pick up the Echols kids, and then off to school we'd go. The same thing when I'd head home; one stop before me, and then my sister and I would be dropped off right outside our home.  Little did I realize that some kids rode the bus for what seemed like hours. My brain never thought twice about the long bus ride for other kids.  But I can recall this one day riding home. We were stopped at the stop light outside the 7 Eleven around the corner from home. I used to frequent this 7 Eleven to indulge in their ice cold slurpees. I have this distinct memory of sitting on the bus, imagining myself in a commercial. Kids are laughi...