My birthday is this week and I'm turning 21 but, because of some of the experiences I've encountered, I feel so much older than that. Rather than living for the moment like most people my age or worrying too much about the future like the rest, I've found a balance of sorts. I choose to take my life day by day while also staying mindful of tomorrow's consequences. In addition to this, I've been spending more time thinking about the kind of woman I'm becoming. I think she can be best described in the 21 quotes below.

21. "She doesn't speak too much but she leads the most intelligent conversations. She is a thinker. She has her coffee and books and music. She has her style. There's something so deep in her eyes. That's why everybody stares at her. She has a beautiful soul. She has a power and she is not afraid to be different. She is the art."

20.

19. "She was fearless - for she knew that hell was beneath her and the fragile gift of morality burned within her. She was the type of girl who would find the wonder in everything and bled beauty with her every breath. She was as together as she needed to be and broken in all the right places - a fractured masterpiece of humanity." -Becca Lee

18. "And she grew tired of being asked if she'd ever fallen in love. Like she wasn't complete otherwise. With a world full of insecurities and short-sighted sheep, she was a wolf with her chin held out high. She took its worst and she took it with a smile that made the bravest take note. Ask that question to someone, anyone else. This beast decided long ago that everyday she'd fall in love with herself." -J. Raymond

17.

16. "I remember when I was younger and I wanted to be beautiful; now I'm older and I want to be intelligent. I want to burn hearts with brilliance and engulf souls with compassion. I want to be loved for my thoughts and nothing else."

15. "Heavy is the crown and yet she wears it as if it were a feather. There is strength in her heart, determination in her eyes and the will to survive resides within her soul. She is you. A warrior, a champion, a fighter, a queen." -r.h. Sin

14. "She was brave and strong and broken all at once." -Anna Funder

13. "She wears strength and darkness equally well, the girl has always been half goddess, half hell." -Nikita Gill

12.

11. "Here is an old fashioned heart that holds timeless love. She's a three page love letter in a world full of relationship status updates." -JmStorm

10. "She could love and love and love and never expect anything in return."

9. "It wasn't that the world was out to get her. She just made it harder on herself sometimes. I guess that's one of the side effects of a heart that's always wide open. She wasn't quite sure if what she was letting in, or out for that matter, was good or bad. But, my God, she felt everything. You have to understand that some wildflowers carry both the pollen and the poison. Living with that much life and death could grow tiresome. Feeling too much instead of becoming numb. I wasn't sure whether to run from her or towards her. So I ran with her. And for the first time in a long time, I believed in something." -J. Raymond

8.

7. "The question isn't who is going to let me. It's who is going to stop me." -Ayn Rand

6. "Let her sleep for when she wakes, she will move mountains."

5.

4. "I am enough. I am full of sparkle and compassion. I genuinely want to make the world a better place. I love hard. I practice kindness. I'm not afraid of the truth. I am loyal, adventurous, supportive and surprising. I am a woman. I am enough. I make mistakes, but I own them and learn from them. Sometimes I make a lot of mistakes." -Molly Mahar

3. "I know what I bring to the table... so trust me when I say I'm not afraid to eat alone."

2. "Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in." -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

1. "She is not the one. Your knees are too weak for her history and those with no backbone will be weighed down by her self respect. When you need easy, she will never be. A fighter, with a soft smile and sharp edge. I watched her live to tell her tales when nobody thought she could. And I knew then, as I know now, she is not the one. She could never be. Certain things defy odds, but are never the same. They grow wildly, and become untamed. And you won't know what to make of a black rose surviving on its own. She's your long way home, the sunset horizon, the city streetlights in the evening rain. She is love in the early mornings. And she is not the one because that's not nearly enough. She's the spaces that fill in what's missing. She is everything else." -J. Raymond