 I was kind of trying to wrestle with the idea of how someone who was born to, in a home for unborn mothers, to a queer single white mom ends up being coming obsessed with marriage to a man, precisely because the other half of me, which is Nigerian, are obsessed with marriage, and Nigerians marry, and since that was kind of tied to my racial identity, I was trying to wonder, like, trying to figure out, like, why in the hell I'm so, was becoming obsessed with getting married. So I decided to do a PowerPoint about it. Because that's how I work shit out, you know? Right? That's how we do. So this is just part of the PowerPoint, and I just kind of randomly chose things, so it may not make sense, but let's see what happens. Okay. So, all of the above. How to tell after 25 years, seven proposals, and two PowerPoint presentations, if he's the man for you. One, begin at a pivotal moment. Such as the first time you and O met. Springtime in Boston, 25 years ago. You remember thinking that you might in fact end up with this gentle man with the hooded eyes who went from sad to radiant the moment he parted his romance novel, Lips, and stretched his broad cheeks into a smile, simply because it was what rom-coms call a meet cute. Oop. But then the stranger bearing gifts, you'd welcomed into your 25th birthday brunch solely on the basis that he looked Nigerian and therefore was connected to you somehow, hopefully, said, I can see you've forgotten me, and explained that while it was his friend who'd moved away, you'd actually invited, this was in fact your third meeting. But stories are all about decisions, so you decided to forget that inconvenient detail, as well as the fact that he asked you to set him up with two of your friends. Thank you. Two, begin by making your readers wonder how, for example, his marriage proposal 25 years later could be so horrible it's gone down in dinner party infamy as the curse proposal. How over the course of seven days in Costa Rica, a setting readers will wonder how you disliked everyone's supposed to love Costa Rica, a country with its own stupid slogan, por vida. He quasi-proposed daily until you shouted, is this really the story you want me to tell? At which point he ran out? Three, begin with an unusual situation. The manual says stories should start in media ray, so fast forward through details like your first and second dating rounds, fast forward through his third wooing attempt, which due to the multimedia collage of bake statement, souvenirs and a new sexual move, you dubbed the PowerPoint presentation. Instead, begin with the declaration, oh and I have dated off and on every decade, segueing into four years of cohabitation and ending with our elopement, three weeks after my 50th birthday, the middle. So now that you've hooked your reader, hopefully, how to tell the story of your actual marriage, the two years of legal status that began after the four years of cohabitation, A, remember the importance of detail, oh loves detail, as do you, when it's the moment you awake to that radiant smile and he says, my wife, and you say, tell me a story. Many of his stories end up on Facebook, unbeknownst to him. Luckily, when your friends almost spill the beans, oh is easy to distract. At boarding school, his nickname was OP, short for what instructor scrawled and read atop his papers and exams off point. It's annoying when oh off point of the PowerPoint tries to claim that you were the same as married during the four years of cohabitation that began after the PowerPoint. The four years of cohabitation that began after the PowerPoint presentation went out of the blue, a college in California called to offer you a visiting gig in the very city where oh lived. B, crisis and conflict. At the end of four years, when you needed a new job and new housing, you hosted a successful tribal meeting. Being Nigerian is a highly bureaucratic endeavor, filled with meetings and tithes. You don't enjoy it, but you do enjoy his best friend's family, the sweet jolly teacher wife, the well-mannered kids who treat you like both a proper Nigerian auntie and a cool American one. Surely spending the afternoon next to them showed that you, though not Nigerian enough to keep your father's attention, fit. He rubbed your sore from cooking shoulders. Honorable pumpkin, he ventured shyly. You did such a wonderful job hosting everyone. I must ask you something. Yes, you ventured equally shy. What do you want to ask me? He flashed a goofy smile. This is embarrassing. It's been four years and I'm just now asking. In the years between your first and second and third dating rounds, when you weren't in touch, you'd occasionally declare that if you ever married a Nigerian, oh would be the one. The result of an inter-ethnic marriage, he was refreshingly open with a distinctly un-Nigerian acceptance of things like gay rights and salad. Oh's rough fingers worked in dreamy swirls on your hair. His voice sing-songed in your ear. So what I want to ask you is this. Yes, what is the name of our cats? At the look on your face, he nodded. Yes, the kids were also shocked. They said, uncle, you don't know the names of your cats. How do you call them now? And I told them, you know, I just say the sick one and the other one. Facebook loves this story. Writers can employ several things at the end of an essay to share thought and intimacy. One, two, we're gone. Three, intrusion, a commentary, a stepping in. Finally you reach the west, okay, so we go to Costa Rica. Finally you reach the west coast, which was tropical, warm and relatively free of zip-lining teens. And on the seventh day, a Sunday, Oh suggested you step across the street to the public beach. And there, beneath a brilliant blue sky, he flourished his poor Vita notebook and proposed with a declaration, a question, proper staging, and a metaphor. I'd workshopped his proposal earlier on, so now he's got all the elements correctly. I chose De Beach, he explained, because our first kiss was at De Beach in Cape Anne 25 years ago. We drove up from Boston, ate lobster and discovered that we were both Pisces. That's the line that brings it home. It's true. His birthday is four days before yours and one day after that of your late mummy who was raised in Cape Anne. She used to twist your curls, make art with you and whisper family secrets, in short, turning you into a writer. And one morning while he is rubbing your forehead and telling you a story, you will realize that you have married your Finnish grandmother in male Nigerian form. But it was Sunday in the Catholic country and not just any Sunday, but Easter Sunday, so no one was going to marry anyone. You were leaving Tuesday, so Monday morning, O called the lawyer the concierge suggested and requested his services on the beach. It's our metaphor. The lawyer nixed the idea of a public beach. He was officiating a private beach club wedding and would pick you up at four. During the ceremony, you could drink at the bar and once the wedding party went inside, step into their spot. Such resourcefulness appealed to the Nigerian and both of you. The lawyer faxed over three sets of vows, the one you chose so perfect that as you recited it, barefoot at sunset, you could actually feel yourself changing despite the lack of Nigerian ritual, eulolating family members, advance planning other than the 25-year audition. Before grabbing dinner together, the lawyer offered to snap photos with your phone, which you posted to Facebook, along with evidence of your marriage certificate. And which hundreds of friends liked, but no one really believed, because A, O was Nigeria's oldest bachelor and you had abandonment issues. B, who gets married in their fifties after dating three times? C, that year, the Monday after Easter Sunday happened to be April Fool's Day, which is now your anniversary. D, all of the above. And I'm done, thank you.