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When it comes to feeling lonely, those who are unattached feel it so predominantly. The pandemic has amplified this; human connection cut off, Zooms a poor substitute – so many living alone felt even more isolated. Even before Covid hit, the figures were sobering; Loneliness affects 1 in 10 Irish people, and an in-depth study said that 16-24-year-olds experience loneliness more often and more intensely than any other age group.
But we know it’s not confined to the young. We know it can be harder to forge friendships as you age, as your childhood friends go down one path and you another. A breakup can catapult you into loneliness, the loss of a job, or a life-changing event such as a deadly virus.
And the season finale (and last ever episode), of KUWTK Kim discussed her relationship with Kanye and her feelings which led to her filing for divorce in February 2021, just before she turned 40.
Sharing that she’d spoken to a therapist, she realised she was unhappily married, and told mum Kris Jenner, she was sacrificing her own wellbeing for her marriage. “I just want total happiness.”
<“Obviously, I know complete bliss is not a full reality but if I can have it more the majority of the time, that’s all I want to do. Wherever that takes me I just want my pure happiness. So that’s what I’m working on, figuring out how to get there,” she said (this was before the split was official).
She explained she too, felt lonely, even though she had a partner, it was she felt, not a life shared.
“I just feel I’ve worked so hard in life to achieve everything that I wanted to and I lived up to my expectations and achieved 10 times more than I ever thought was humanly possible but I don’t have a life to share that with.”
She continued, “I never thought I was lonely, and I always thought that’s totally fine, I can just have my kids, my husband moves from state to state and I’m on this ride with him and I was OK with that.”
Things changed when she hit a milestone birthday and realised the two got along when they were apart.
“And then after turning 40 this year I realised no, I don’t want a husband that lives in a completely different state to me. I thought, ‘oh my God, that’s when we’re getting along the best’. But that is sad to me and that’s not what I want. I want someone that we have the same shows in common, I want someone that wants to work out with me.”
It’s never easy to voice those thoughts, for a woman who has it all on the surface to admit she felt like she was alone, with little support in the partner she had.
“I’m numb like, I’m tired of that, but I do know that I will be happy. I didn’t come this far just to come this far, and not be happy,” she said.
Kim is a woman who is putting her own happiness first – and for that, she deserves our applause.