After my dad hit his four-year sober milestone we planned to spend Christmas 2019 together for the first time. On Christmas Day he surprised me with plane tickets to New York for Easter weekend. Neither of us have ever been to America, and it was a long-held dream for him, something he’d been talking about since leaving rehab.

One of my best friends was due to get married in May, for which I’d be travelling to Scotland for a long weekend. My spring and summer 2020 are sprinkled with due dates with three of my friends expecting to give birth in the next two months.

Obviously, none of those things have gone to plan. I’ve hardly seen any of Brighton where I now live, beyond peering out of my window and taking a short walk to the fields near my house. Our New York trip was swiftly cancelled. My friend’s wedding has been postponed until next year. And I haven’t yet, and won’t for a long while, meet any of my friend’s new babies.

Of course, none of it matters in the grand scheme of things. Over 12,00 people have died from coronavirus in the UK alone. NHS staff are working endless shifts. Businesses are failing. My ruined holiday plans are literally nothing compared to the pain that people are going through. But what’s hit me, more than looking at a languishing, stretching summer, is that I just expected everything would go exactly according to plan.

“This pandemic has made me realise I was naïve to think my life would go exactly to plan”