I hate the word 'selfie.'

'#nofilter' and '#iwokeuplikethis' irk me.

I know what you look like but what do you do?

I live for the children that I don't have yet.

I slept in a snow-cushioned tent in the mountains,

Swam in a secret warm spring,

Marathoned over cobblestones with an uneven backpack,

Just so I can promise that I lived my youth through and through, and

Now it's your turn. Look up, dig in, don't waste it.

I work for the children whose parents weren't ready for them yet.

They didn't mean any harm, they just didn't know.

A society simultaneously progressing and regressing at the speed of life.

We're a glass half full but of what?

I study so I can help

The people who are already living #nofilter,

Waking up free of rose-colored glasses.

The world is zooming off to questionable frontiers with a blind driver

while they stand still,

only wanting the basic package

of living to tell their children their own stories of

sleeping in the snow and

washing in the spring and

marathoning over uneven roads.

I know what I look like. The same as I looked before. The same as I'll look in the end.

I know what we look like. I did what I did before, and I'll do what I'll have done in the end,

If only to never see the world look quite like this again.