Kate Shurety is our Executive Director. As part of our International Women’s Day blog series, highlighting female experiences of loneliness, she talks about finding time for friends in your 40s, and why friendship is so important for tackling loneliness.

“At this point in my life, moments of quiet are few and far between. The combination of work and family responsibilities mean I always feel busy and keeping up with friends can easily slip down the list of priorities.

But the period between 40 and 60 can often come with an unequal amount of caring responsibilities for women: juggling work with caring for ageing parents and growing children. And it’s easy to let the friendships that have sustained us through our 20s and 30s fall by the wayside.

“My friends are wonderful, important people and I love being around them. But we also need each other.”

The Campaign’s first report ‘Safeguarding the Convoy’ talks about the importance of one’s personal ‘convoy’: the assembly of family, friends, social contacts, work, passions and pastimes, resources and assets which you take forward through life, and which secures your confidence and enables you to lead the life you choose to the full. This convoy protects you against loneliness, but we all need to work to keep it alive.

So, this International Women’s Day, I am reflecting on the importance of finding time to invest in my friendships. My friends are wonderful, important people and I love being around them. But we also need each other. I want us to grow older together and continue supporting and celebrating each other for decades to come.”

This is part of a blog series for International Women’s Day 2020.