Joel Kim Booster

I've been consistently medicated and had a like real handle on the dosages and what works for me and what doesn't work for me because it's all trial and error and there's a lot they don't understand about this disease.

still.

And so a lot of it is just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

And I think like a big part of it has been being in a stable relationship and finding the line and balance of like doing it to make sure that I can, you know, keep it whole, like make sure that the relationship stays healthy, but also not doing it for him, doing it for myself.

And it's just been a, it's been a real journey figuring all of that out.

I would say that, you know, it's funny.

I realized I wanted to propose to him when I had my entire life sort of imagined.

He's also my first adult relationship to like I never dated anyone.

in my 20s or early 30s.

Because of my career, I was very career focused.

And then once I was, you know, sort of settled in the career was when I finally had the room.

But I always imagined that I would meet someone fall in love with that person and then be in love with that person for the rest of my life.

And then three years in or so, we had this realization that even in just a short three years since we'd met, we'd both changed a lot.

And we're not the same people that we were when we met.

But I still really loved him.

And I loved this new version of him.

And I realized then that I was like, oh, I want to put in the work to make sure that I love the next iteration of him and the iteration after that.

And our joke is that iteration five will suck, but we'll ride him out until the next iteration after that.

And when I realized I think I realized that it was like love and that kind of commitment was so much more about growing with the person and not about stasis, but about change.

And when that shifted in my brain, I think that's when I really understood why I wanted to be married in the first place.