For a brief, beautiful moment in your mid-twenties, you think you have The Plan somewhat figured out and you’re settling into this young adult business with gusto.

I’d moved across the pond to be with my long-term college boyfriend. We had a proper grownup flat very close to a sensible tube station, a good pub and a Tesco express. I was working my 9–5 social media job, trying really hard to befriend all of my colleagues (even the misogynist ones) and was quite convinced that my life looked like the happier bits of Love Actually.

It was a more innocent time. A time when I bought cheap shoes without sole support. A time when I still Instagrammed #latteart on the regular and avoided student loan payments with ignorant bliss. Oh, what a time. I was busy! So busy. Constantly busy. So on-the-go, always networking, always socializing, always going to a meeting, always planning somewhere to be and something to do. I was very concerned with being part of a scene, competing with people around me and being part of a “cool industry”. I bought into the unhealthy idea that “hustle” was a way of life, and I was so busy for the sake of being busy that I honestly forgot to check in with myself. I forgot to stop along the way to ask whether or not I was actually really happy and mentally healthy, or if I just liked the idea of what “my exciting life” was.

Eventually, with that kind of pace, burnout happens. Realizing you’re actually really queer happens. Breakups happen, and my ex, the lovable college boyfriend who I was with for six years, went from being my boyfriend to a good friend who lived in my apartment. The relationship fell to pieces in slow-motion, as it often does when you’ve grown up together and can’t see it happening before your eyes. Our values and identities started to become more fully formed (and different) as we got older, and when the inevitable clashes began, we desperately tried to cling to who were at 18-years-old just to make sense of the relationship we were still in. We certainly weren’t putting a huge amount of effort into being loving, active participants in the relationship and equal partners to each other, but breaking up seemed scarier than clinging to our unhealthy relationship dynamic for the longest time.

Fast-forward a few years later, and, as Aquarians are apparently wont to do, I’ve given up both heteronormativity and the idea of “hustle” as a lifestyle. “Creativity and happiness” as a lifestyle is a lot more fulfilling (duh), and I’ve also given up my flat, my job, most of my things and I’m freelancing. I’m slowing down in general. The world isn’t ending just because I’m choosing a minimal and more balanced work-life path, and incredibly, I’m doing that yoga I’ve put off for three years. Most significantly, I’m dating a woman 15 years my senior, and learning how to actually put effort into a relationship for the first time in my adult life.

Now, if you’ve ever started a wonderful new relationship only to realize how horrible you used to be, I feel you. When you go from dating a 20-something man to a 40-year-old woman, you have to learn how to be a loving, active participant and an equal partner pretty darn quickly — and when it comes to putting in effort, I had to do a 180.

When I was dating a younger man, I would emotionally “check out” for days on end. The honest truth is that he too was checked out most of the time, and even when he tried to check in with me about his internal workings, I’d subconsciously dismiss his struggle or his anxiety to focus on my own. When men are taught not to feel, women sometimes learn that men aren’t there to have feelings, they’re just there to be tough and handle things. I wasn’t purposeful about it or aware of the problem, but emotional laziness in love inspires more laziness in love, and so we operated on a minimal-effort basis.

With a woman, you can’t operate on a minimal-effort basis, because…women. You will quickly learn a hell of a lot more about feminism, with side effects like searing regret that you treated your ex as a “stereotypical male caretaker” and expected him to fix the things. Especially when you’re two feminine women in a relationship, that dynamic goes out the window pretty quickly and you HAVE to have an open dialogue and check in with each other constantly. There’s no guy to automatically assume the responsibility of “guy stuff”, and sometimes, I have to fix the thing. It’s not her responsibility just because she’s older than I am. She’s a human being with strengths and fears and vulnerabilities and weaknesses and a unique gender identity. We divide up the chores on a basis of compromise, which makes me realize how grossly unfair I had been in my previous relationship about doing “the hard stuff.”

I should have stepped up to fix the thing.

I’m also realizing now that the ingredients for most people in a healthy relationship aren’t, “Hey, you play your part and I’ll play mine,” but rather putting forth real effort, lots of compassion and lots of calling each other on your bullshit. I may have skimmed over that “compassionate” part before. It’s easy to lack compassion for others, when you lack compassion for even yourself and you have no idea how to slow down. I couldn’t slow down and make time for him and us if I wasn’t even taking the time for myself. Slowing down for your mental health certainly didn’t suit my brand of Beyoncé Feminism, which was all about stepping up the hustle. No one needed to slow down, everyone needed to speed up and I didn’t need to fawn all over my boyfriend all the time. I was an independent lady with things to do!

Now, when your older girlfriend who has already survived her 30s and has the battle scars to prove it tells you to slow down, you do tend to listen. You’ve seen the burnout now. You believe it when she tells you that not taking care of yourself does more harm than good. You understand it even more when you start to reap the benefits of radical self-care, caring for your person and them caring for you in return.

Everyone’s relationship and experiences are so different, but for the recently-single, may I propose that your next love be a great one? Queer or straight, poly or monogamous, I now believe that loving yourself wholeheartedly and learning how to love someone else wholeheartedly is probably the most revolutionary thing you can do in a relationship in the age of personal brands and swiping right.

(Or, in the words of O-Town, you should do it all. Or nothing it all.)