This Sunday is a special day. 19 years ago, on 5th February, I shot forth into Planet Earth. (5th February is also Cristiano Ronaldo’s birthday, but mine is obviously more important.)

19 isn’t considered a ‘big’ birthday. However, I’d argue that it’s ‘bigger’ than 21, and I don’t just say that because I lack a basic understanding of mathematics. This year is my last year of being a teenager, the epoch before I enter that wilderness of my ‘twenties’.

Now, I’m under no illusions. I know I probably won’t feel any different when I turn 20. Birthdays are always an anti-climax, like Topshop knickers and the Doctor Who Christmas Special. But that doesn’t change the emphasis so often put on our teenage years.

"Take a second to appreciate the fact that teenage you put up with a lot."

On the brink of a ‘proper age’, I thought now might be a good time to reflect on my adolescence. And as a member of the generation that first started to document their lives online, what better way could I gain an insight into what it was like to be thirteen, than to go onto Facebook and scroll back to 2009?

Reader, prepare yourself for a level of second-hand embarrassment not felt since Franz Ferdinand’s driver took a wrong turn.

This journey into my own past has taught me that Facebook’s age limit isn’t designed to keep youngsters safe from perverts ­– it’s designed to keep youngsters safe from themselves. If there’s anything that 13 year olds don’t need, it’s a platform to share their every waking thought.

Case in point:

8th August 2011: “5 past 11.... Should probably get out of pyjamas and into actual clothes now... Nah.”

That’s right, I stayed in my pyjamas until 11am. I was like a young Ross Kemp. Though, despite being well hard, I still longed for romance. But as teenagers we learn it’s never straightforward:

On 14th September 2011, I simply shared a link to the Razorlight song, ‘Who Needs Love?’

Worst of all, nobody commented “u k bbz?” Thus, proving how unloved I was in 2011.

Moving into 2012, I was still preoccupied with finding a relationship, but my mother was not much help:

8th October 2012: “‘Kate, you’re not to marry an Irishman.’ Thanks mum, I’ll bear that in mind.”

The issue being that my focus was on the nationality of any potential significant others. Little did I know that it wasn’t a Seamus I was looking for, but a Sinead. (I was going to do a pun, but even I wouldn’t stoop so low as “after a Gaelic”.)

https://www.varsity.co.uk/violet/11802

https://www.varsity.co.uk/violet/11899

Awkwardly sidestepping into 2013, I was 15 and starting to work out who I was. In some ways, this was going great, as is evidenced by the following crucial update:

12th November 2013: “Pixie cut perks: when your hair is wet and you can spend a full 20 minutes giving yourself a comb over and pretending to be a footman in Downtown Abbey.”

However, it wasn’t all sunshine and haircuts in 2013. I posted a plethora of pictures of cakes and biscuits. Cakes and biscuits I was making, but not eating. There was also a picture of the sticker I got from the nurse after my weekly blood test.

It’s at this point in scrolling through my Facebook memories that I take a minute to appreciate that nothing is ever that bad. That if I can give myself a fairly substantial beating up at 15, then anything that the world has in store for me will pale in comparison. In some ways, I was a bit like Ross Kemp.

Teenagers, for all the embarrassing stuff they post online, are pretty bloody tough.

And that’s what I’m going to leave you with. Just take a moment to pat fifteen-year-old you on the head, and remember how often you felt like the world was ending, and how often it didn’t actually end. Take a second to appreciate the fact that teenage you put up with a lot. And if you can do your teenage years, chances are you’ll probably be able to manage your twenties