As a freshman in college, a few things changed with the transition from the all-girls high school I had called home for the past few years to a university a few hours from it. The year 2016 meant a lot of changes in my life: new friends, the ability to sign my own waiver for intramural dodgeball (score!), and the exponentially increased freedom to go to concerts on school nights and get stranded in a Philly train station before an 8 am class (but that's another story).

As a new adult juggling the new responsibilities of college, it seemed to me as though there were a million things to keep up with. The one thing I was failing to keep up with, however, were the people I had left behind as I made this great new expedition into a new frontier of my youth.

Coming home from my first semester of college, I found myself in the presence of a little sister who, in many ways, had gone through almost as many changes as I had. My little sister Olivia had made that all-too-scary transition from the safe, recess-filled, halls of the elementary school to the much more complicated, confusing landscape of *drum roll* Middle School.

While I was in college trying to figure out the ins and outs of university life, my sister Olivia was going through the all-too-awkward phases of middle school which I had (thankfully) left behind. No longer was my little sister the small, bumbling child I had grown up with, but now almost a teenager in a totally different phase of her life.

Even though we are only six years apart, I found it difficult to relate my experiences back to my little sister, who to my dismay now seemed to have an even better music taste than I did (not to mention her killer dance moves). Whereas I had enjoyed shows like Hannah Montana and That's So Raven, her interest in a show about a dog with a blog left me wondering if there was anything we had in common. With the instant access to the internet and technology that I didn't have at that point, my sister's experience in middle school was already much different than mine. I was pretty much the farthest thing from "cool older sister" that you could get, and I was wondering how on earth I could find common ground with Olivia.

That was, until she started readingPercy Jackson and the Olympians during school.

One day after school, Olivia excitedly rushed up to tell me that her teacher had started them on The Lightening Thief, the first book in the Percy Jackson Series, knowing that the series had been my favorite at her age. She opened her book, telling me all about magical summer camps and battles with monsters and heroes alike.

Instantly, something clicked between us that hadn't in a long time. Whereas I seemed lost among the millions of funny vines and trends popular to twelve year olds, Percy Jackson was something that had formed my obsessive reading habits and love for the written word at an early age. Reading that series as a child, I could see how the words on a page could be used to make others smile, and had started my dream of being an author. Every time I had opened one of Rick Riordan's books, I knew a fantastical adventure awaited me.

This time reading Percy Jackson was no exception.

That night I sat up with her as she read the book with the same passion I had, and we laughed as Percy experienced hilarious failures and held our breath as Ancient Greek gods attacked the team of demigods on a quest to save the day. Percy, a twelve-year-old boy trying to figure out life as both a human and the son of one of the most powerful gods of Ancient Greece, allowed me to recapture all the sentiments I had felt as a child. No longer was Olivia and her experiences foreign to me: they were all easily translated within the pages of a favorite book.

Although only something small as reading a book together, being able to have the same passion, even for a short while, brought a new perspective to our relationship. Due to a lot of different factors, my sister and I often do not get along, but that night sitting up in a makeshift fort, going on an adventure only a book can provide, it showed me that simply making the time to forge a bond with my sister went a long way.

That night was one of the good ones, and I can only thank the demigod for saving the day.