A break from social media hasn't made Kim Kardashian any less of an expert at it.
The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star posted a home video montage to her app Tuesday morning and, by the end of the day, had posted anew on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat for the first time in three months—three months to the day, in fact, from when she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris.
In so doing, with those simple flicks of her thumbs, Kim took back her power—both the power that she has been wielding for years as a social media taste-maker and the feeling of stability and control she was also temporarily robbed of when thieves made off with more than $10 million worth of her jewelry at the end of her terrifying encounter.
It's evident that Kim's low-key posts—the homespun video; a photo of her with husband Kanye West and their kids, captioned simply "family"; and this morning a shot of her and Saint, labeled only "my son"—are her way of declaring, "This is what really matters."
But Kim also appeared to mean, virtually emerging as she did on Jan. 3, the first regular business day of 2017: "On with the show." And after a stranger holiday season than anyone could have anticipated, she has Kanye, her partner in life and everything that goes with it, right by her side.
Because if anyone just gets Kim and the tightrope she's walking as a mega-celebrity whose biggest asset is her relationship with her fans, it's Kanye.
It's why the two were meant to be and why the skeptics were so far off when they predicted doom for their marriage after Kanye's hospitalization. Sure, that was trying for the couple, coming on the heels of Kim's own traumatic experience as it did—but hey, they're married. And people as devoted to each other as Kimye are don't just cut and run. Kanye leaving his own show mid-song when he found out about Kim's trouble in Paris is far more indicative of the state of their bond—strong as hell—than any stretches of silence that came after.
That being said, they are both equally aware that to live in the public eye is a give and take, and they're not the types to let public opinion get too far out of hand. So...ready or not... date night Dec. 18.
Amid speculation that they were having issues, Kim and Kanye went out for dinner together in Santa Monica, at the time their first time photographed out together since the day after the robbery, when Kim had flown immediately to New York to reunite with Kanye and daughter North and then turned right around and flew back to Los Angeles.
Their choice of eatery? Giorgio Baldi, a favorite lurking spot of the paparazzi due to the sheer quantity of A-list celebrities who dine there on a regular basis.
Step one on their road back to the spotlight: successful.
Yet while sources had assured E! News that Kim and Kanye looked perfectly content when they were spending time at home together, had "never contemplated a break" and were working through their tough time, no one was going to be satisfied with that one outing.
But slow and steady wins the race.
In the meantime, Kim was negotiating her return to social media. Aside from following and unfollowing people, and presumably OKing any content added to her app and website, she herself had been entirely absent from Twitter, Instagram (where she's the fifth most-followed person in the world) and Snapchat (whose popularity she helped build).
There were multiple family milestones that could have provided a logical opportunity to return, including son Saint West's first birthday, the birth of her niece Dream Kardashian and Kendall Jenner's 21st birthday. She opted to celebrate all of those happy occasions privately.
By the time the holidays rolled around, however, she was ready—although the Kardashian-Jenner family did not circulate their usual annual holiday card, a tradition for both their family and the rest of us who love to over-analyze them over eggnog every year.
Kim had let Rob Kardashian share a pic after Halloween of her wearing matching Princess Jasmine costumes with North, but it wasn't until the week leading up to Christmas that she appeared on Snapchat and Instagram (via friends' and family's accounts, that is), posing for pictures and video at her family's holiday party. Quite glamorous and high-profile, but still a safe space.
The holiday cheer continued when Kim and Kanye took budding ballerina North to see The Nutcracker in nearby Redondo Beach with Kourtney Kardashian and daughter Penelope.
After Christmas, Kim ventured out to visit Joyce Bonnelli in the hospital after the makeup artist gave birth to twin sons—and who doesn't want to pose for a picture holding not one, but two newborn babies?!
She and Kanye spent a low-key New Year's Eve together, then took off with their kids on New Year's Day for an overnight trip to Oklahoma to visit for the first time the final resting place of Kanye's beloved mom, Donda West, who died in 2007.
After such a momentous recharging moment—spiritually, mentally and emotionally—they returned to their Bel-Air home on Monday night and on Tuesday, with Kim's return to social media, they more or less resumed their lives.
"I really cried when I seen that @KimKardashian put a post on Instagram. Like I missed her," tweeted one of the lucky fans who got a retweet from Kim last night upon her return to Twitter, some hours after her first Instagram post of 2017.
With that, Kim was really back, engaging with her followers for the first time in months as she used to do on a near daily basis—as she knew she would need to do again sooner rather than later, being who she is. While there were some snide comments from those judging other people's excited reactions to Kim being back on social media, causing her to become a trending topic... really, what would a Kim Kardashian Instagram post be without a little backlash?
Finally, Twitter is looking normal again.
And almost simultaneously last night, Kim's little peach emoji popped back up in the Snapchat queue for the first time in months as well. She had posted a condensed version of the two-minute-plus video that she had shared earlier.
"Kanye made me two versions for my Christmas present," she wrote.
No doubt.