Many people who know me will know that I’ve written a complete diary entry, every single day, for thirty years. I didn’t intend to, but once you get into the habit of something like that, you can’t quite stop.

The diaries are personal. I started them in the interest of recording all the things I didn’t want to forget, but over the years they’ve been a valuable way for me to process my thoughts and feelings too. This was particularly useful during childhood, when things were ever-changing at pace.

I was very lucky to have a stable and generally happy upbringing. When I post what I’m about to post, I want to make it clear that I acknowledge and appreciate that. But – like a lot of young people – I really struggled with anxiety.

Throughout my teens, I had zero confidence in myself. I felt different to everybody else, hated my appearance, and was often ridiculed and laughed at by the ‘cool’ girls for being a bit “weird”, because I enjoyed different music and could be a bit quirky.

And I looked the way I did. I was regularly referred to as Bugs Bunny because of my teeth and – on one particularly damning occasion that I can fortunately laugh about now – Robbie from Eastenders, because of my straggly hair (as well as the teeth, again).

Some lines stay in your head forever:

“You’re SO sad. You know that don’t you?!“ (First week of secondary school, from a girl who’d gone to the same primary school so I felt had the evidence to say this. Ouch.)

“What’s wrong, Sophie? Did you look in a mirror?!” (Year 11. Same girl and her friend. Double ouch.)

I often felt that nobody really liked me because of these things, which as a child is a really nasty yet very common way to feel. In reality I had many lovely friends at school, and though time and distance can naturally cause some friendships to drift, they will always have a special place in my heart because of what we learned about life together. The problem at the time, was that I just didn’t understand why they’d want to hang around with me. I didn’t even want to hang around with me, because it would have meant having to look at my face, and I didn’t even like looking at myself in a mirror, which probably explains why I often looked a bit of a mess. Vicious cycle.

But this isn’t a ‘woe is me’, because the reality was that I was far, far from alone in being the target of ridicule.

My form at school earned a lovely nickname within the wider year group: ‘Slags and Weirdos‘. I never needed to ask which category I fell into. In the earlier years of secondary school there was a bit of an in-form rivalry between the two of us because we were so different, but by the end of year 11, we all seemed to gel. Maybe it was a mutual respect following the shared experience of being judged by others, but it showed to me at an early age the value of trying to understand and respect people’s individual stories, even – especially – if on the surface they differ from our own. The importance of recognising that all groups have their own challenges and experiences. The ‘Slags and Weirdos’ had more in common than they initially realised, and we were the best form because of it. Go the A’s.

And I know that this kind of social politics still goes on in schools today, that young people are struggling more than ever with their mental health, either with anxiety like I had or things much more serious. I feel for them, I really do, particularly in the advent of social media, where the judgement and bullying can be constant, and not just confined within school walls.

Whenever I read through my old diaries, there are so many occasions when I just want to respond, to go back in time and reassure or advise myself from the future. I obviously can’t do that, but writing this feels like the next best thing.  Who knows, maybe the 65 year old me will feel like doing similar after reading back over the 2026 diary. A lot of our life is only really understood or contextualised in time. That’s how it works.

Much of the content below will seem trivial. It is trivial, and that’s why my responses are mostly in jest, but the problem is that I didn’t know that at the time. The fact is, that it was a very upset thirteen year old girl writing some of these entries, and whilst I personally think it’s healthy to be able to laugh at ourselves – which is why I do so throughout this post – I don’t want that sentiment to be forgotten.

Why am I sharing this? Well for one thing, I’ve been trying to work out for years how to make some use of my diaries, since I’ve spent so many years writing them.  The other reason is that I think sometimes, even within the furthest flung corners of the Internet, things are found when they need to be. If any youngsters come across this page at any point in the future – my nieces and nephews perhaps – then I hope it can help to reassure you of the power of perspective and time, and why many of the things you’re stressing about now really don’t matter, or that they’ll pass.

I deliberated whether sharing photos from the actual diaries – as opposed to just typed quotes – would be appropriate or ‘too much’. In the end I decided to share them. That way you know the words haven’t been altered or embellished to make for better or more impactful reading, like so many other things are these days. They are a child’s real thoughts and feelings. They were never written with a wider audience in mind, and there was no reason to try and hide or fabricate anything.

So here you have it. A conversation with my 13 year old self, part 1, when we head back to early 1999. This was my first page-to-a-day diary, the first year that the entries started to properly contain feelings as well as facts. My original plan was to do a full year, but within just two months, there was already so much I wanted to say… and that alone speaks for itself.

Names have been obscured and replaced with *** where appropriate.

“There will come a time when you actually miss a lot of things about school, even double Maths on a Monday morning with Mrs Dey (what a legend, by the way. You thought she was evil, but now you realise it all came from a place of care. And in 2024, when you find out she has long passed away, you will actually feel very sad, and regret writing that poem about her in year 9).

You ‘worked’ a 6 hour day which included over an hour of pissing around playing cards at lunch. Bin Duty was once a term as opposed to every single day. You didn’t have to worry about bills or income. The only thing you were really compelled to do was go and learn about new and interesting things all week. You’d love to be able to do that now.”

“The sad thing here (aside from the fact you were planning to do a dance rendition of ‘Tragedy’ by Steps in the school talent show), is that you had been uncomfortable about leaving her out from the start, but you didn’t have the courage to voice it. You were more concerned about being included in the dance yourself, even if it meant others – like one of your favourite friends – missing out. That’s the real ‘tragedy’ here, and it was a really shitty thing to do. You’ll eventually learn that you must always listen to your gut feeling and align your actions with your values, but admittedly it’s harder to do that at your age, when you’re still working out what those values are…

By the way, in years to come – starting as soon as year 9 – you will ALL be laughing about the fact you fell out over this. So that weekend you wasted feeling grey and sick about this, worrying you’d lost those friendships forever… you really didn’t need to.”

“Oh, Sophie. Cringe. The Offspring are NOT goth, nor are they heavy metal, they’re pop punk. You’re not a goth, although you’ll try to be one in 2001 when you start wearing lots of black and burning incense in your bedroom whilst listening to Belladonna & Aconite from your big sister’s Inkubus Sukkubus CD on repeat and using words like ‘wiccan’ on internet chatrooms even though you have no idea what it actually means.”

“Hahaha. You’re still not a goth, three days later. And now you’re being judgemental about other’s musical tastes too. Practice what you preach, though you’re right in expressing solidarity with a minority.”

“You’ll start meeting boys and having boyfriends in a couple of years, and the ensuing drama and general cacophony will make you realise why you’re happy to attend an all girls school. A comparatively peaceful oasis within the nonsense.

You will get offered a place at Ricky for sixth form but you will be delighted that you don’t need to accept it and can stay where you are. So you don’t really hate your school afterall.”

“Okay, firstly, you need to accept the fact you’ll never get any better at coordinated dance (or any dancing, for that matter). Secondly, why on earth did they think a self-confessed ‘goth’ would make a great member of faux Steps! You don’t even like Steps. They should have just asked *** in the first place, if nothing else it would have saved the dramas of 08/01/1999. Whoever organised that bloody talent contest had a lot of tears to answer for!”

“Well thank goodness she (really nice girl, by the way) did take over the CD player at the party. Nobody would have wanted to listen to Weezer or Nirvana, just you (and possibly Emily), and you can do that in your own time. And one day, chart music will pine for something like the innocent, upbeat tones of Billie Piper. You might feel embarrassed to know that when you’re an ‘old lady’ (you know, 40) you’ll be straight on the dance-floor when that same song chimes in on 90’s nights. Because you want to. Genuinely. Pop music at the moment is the best, you don’t realise how good your generation has it. Keep her on DJ duty!”

“You will never see him ever again, Sherlock. But you WILL see the real Jordan Knight, performing in Manchester in 2012. The rest of the New Kids will be there too. Yes, even Joey. The one you cried about last year because you fancied him so much but he lives in the States (and also has zero interest in meeting you, as he sits in his mansion with his beautiful blonde wife and millions of dollars).“

“Christ. Where to start with this chaos… maybe just know that in as far away as 2024 you’ll go for brunch in St Albans with at least half the people mentioned in this entry, where you will spend a great deal of time reminiscing and laughing about dramas such as this one. Real friends stay, and you can look forward to meeting your very best friends in the years to come. That’s all you need to know right now.”

“I’m glad you were considering ways to conserve valuable energy (and ink) when you wrote “2” instead of “to”. It’s a shame you expended that same energy on feeling way more upset about this than you needed to. You’ll all be friends again before the week is out anyway. Please stop crying about this. It’s really not worth it. Watch some TV instead, pick up a new book, learn to paint, spend time with your parents and make the most of the free cake on the days out at all those old houses and gardens.

And sometimes people just like to sit in different places at lunch to switch up the scenery. Don’t let overthinking become a habit…”

“Saddest love story ever known. He won’t be there next week, and neither will you. You and Emma will start bunking off from hockey club and cycle around the park for an hour instead before going back to her house to play Paperboy on the Sega. You’ll lie to your parents but the probability is they know this already. The shite hockey skills and lack of bruises kinda give it away.”

“Yeah. Comments like this don’t really help with the hang-ups, and the fact you’ll still be able to visualise this exact moment – some year 10s near the stairs by the modern language department – in 2026 isn’t great. But whatever, hopefully it was a fit boy at least. Or one that will grow into a hot man. Maybe it could be worse.”

“Trying to second guess what people are thinking and feeling is – and will always be – exhausting. Just ask them, instead of overthinking. Chances are they’re thinking about Wagon Wheels and German homework as opposed to some idle gossip about some ‘legs’ (wtf).

…

*Slams head on desk*

“Put the pink pen firmly back in the cylindrical Bang-on-the-door pencil case and stop defacing your rough book. You won’t realise it yet, but PSE is actually one of the more important of all the classes. You might find the Resusci-Annies mildly terrifying – who doesn’t- but this is more important than learning about tectonic plates, and more important than learning about parabolas (word last used in 2002). Just because there’s no exam on it, doesn’t mean you mustn’t listen. And that’s exactly why Miss Brown shouted at you about this, because she knew how important it was too.”

“You’ll remember it word for word for years to come, because you keep it:

‘Dear Sophie, your eyes are like shining grapefruits. Your lips bloom like Venus fly traps. From HB‘

Fair play to whichever creative genius wrote that. Even though it was sent in jest… still one of the best you’ll ever have.”

“You have literally just received a Valentines card from your childhood crush. We can ignore the fact it was a joke. You can’t be that ugly anyway, your eyes are like shining grapefruits, apparently.”

“It will never matter what anyone does – or doesn’t – do. Somebody, somewhere, will always have a problem with it. Even in adulthood. But the useful thing is that they’ll never be the sort of people you wish to have in your life anyway, so stop caring about what they think and only concern yourself with the opinions of those whose opinions you actually value. “

And to end with something light…

“I’m telling you this after two whole rounds of braces and an ongoing interest in Invisalign, because if you were still in school right now you’d probably still be getting referred to as ‘Bugs’:

Stop.Fiddling.With.That.Retainer. And wear it EVERY night. Forever”

To be continued…