It’s August 10, 2017 and I am officially twenty years old.

It feels so surreal as I look back to when I was younger. Just like nineteen, twenty is a weird age. You are past 18 years old when you are able to have your license (depends by each state), buy lottery tickets, or cigarets (if you do smoke). Then you’re not 21 which you are legal to buy alcohol. Twenty is a special age. It is saying goodbye to the teenage years. You are in college and/or working. You have more responsibilities now. Your relationships with friends and family have grown, broken, or now are being mended back together. Always remember that the past is in the past and what has done can not be reverted. Your maturity has developed (I hope). You know the basics of right and wrong. You know what cruelty the world can be. Though you know the beauty it also brings. You know yourself more and more as each day comes. You know that you should always love yourself. Sometimes you have to be selfish but, no one knows you better than yourself in this whole world. The little things that makes you happy and sad. When your heart swells with pain or beats with joy every step you take. The reasons why you wake up to see another day or you fall asleep to wake up.

Here are 20 quotes that I have taken with me that help me understand myself and how to love what the world has given me.

1. "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." -The Help

2. "We love our bread. We love our butter. But most of all. We love each other." -Madeline

3. "Actions speak louder than words." -English Proverb

4. "How do you spell ‘love’?" – Piglet

"You don’t spell it…you feel it." – Pooh

-Winnie The Pooh

5. “Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.” -Elizabeth Gilbert,

6. "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it." -Pablo Picasso

7. "Life's a climb. But the view is great.” -Miley Cyrus

8. "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." -Shakespeare

9. "Don't be afraid of death, be afraid of the unlived life." -Tuckeverlasting

10. "Be nice to nice." -Harry Styles

11. "yes

it is possible

to hate and love

someone

at the same time

i do it to myself

everyday"

-rupi kaur

12. "My mom says crying is just your body expelling all the bad stuff. Like a sneeze. Like your soul sneezing." -The Symptoms of Being Human

13. "The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart." -Helen Keller

14. "Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon." -Paul Brandt

15. "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." -Gandhi

16. "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you." -John Green

17. "I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... to make each day count." -Titanic

18. "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building the new." -Socrates

19. "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." -Confucius

20. "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift." -Eleanor Roosevelt

Quotes have been an important part of my life. They are lessons told to be taught and learned. We learn and grow everyday from the life we are living.

I myself have lived in rural, city, and suburban environments. I have gone from home to home and school to school. I have met a wide range of people with different religions and politics. From different backgrounds of races and families. I have been promised and made promises that have either been kept or broken. I have been loved, in live, and lost love.

But I want to tell myself and everyone else who is turning twenty. Live each day like it is your last. As you can tell life goes by fast and does not wait for anyone. Enjoy the twenty years of life you have lived so far and for the many more years to come.