"I'm engaged!" Marriage & other musings

On the very weird weirdness of being happy out loud and a cocktail recipe.

Where do I begin? I’m engaged…delightedly, and have been for just over two months now. My fiancè, who so many of you have come to know as B but is actually Femi B (not Nigerian, but still Yoruba), and I have been living in a beautiful little bubble of a slow rollout and baby-stepping the planning process. (BTW, yes, a podcast episode is coming with all deets about the proposal, the ring, and some Q&A with Femi, who joins us at the end! Subscribe on YouTube so you’ll get it when it drops)

The B's. <3

On the night that it happened, a Friday in mid-March, despite over 9 months of talking about rings and early brainstorms about favorite wedding venues, I was completely shocked. That night, we called our parents and two of our very closest friends and went to sleep *wink*. The next morning, we called every family member I could think of to share the news. That afternoon, we called Femi’s friends who knew it was around the corner and I shared in my Close Friends on IG. That night, we went for drinks and told Faith, the waitress who served us on our very first date at Bar Margot. We three laughed in the corner booth for so long it seemed she might get in trouble. She sent out champagne. That Sunday, we sank into the couch and daydreamt about our marriage.

In the days after, we sat in a quiet joy about the whole thing. Anyone who saw me out would notice the change before my hand could reach outward, I’ve had a giggle at the ready. I love love only slightly less than I love my love. And moving toward marriage with him feels like breathing. Like one foot in front of the other. It is natural and dense and in my bones and on me like the ink of my thirteen tattoos. And I also exist outside of my storied pursuit of this kind of love.

We waited three weeks before sharing on socials, by then our whole IRL community knew and it was becoming tedious to hide such a sparkling secret in my hair or behind my back or crop my hand out of the photo altogether. We (I) wanted a moment to sit in the silence before the questions started about wedding planning, before the advice rolled in, before the projection.

Nothing could have prepared me for the projection. The “I remember when you were looking online looking for love” (girl, what?!). The “OMG, wow from heartbreak to engagement.” The “I hope you don’t become one of those bride influencers”. The “glad it happened for you, I remember when you were lonely.” In the moment of sharing my very happy news were at least fifty women who could not wait to point back at what I’d volunteered over the years as a reference point for some unreciprocated pity. I am a brilliant, sensitive, heavy, sensual, incisive woman. Fragile. Vulnerable. Vocal. I have a kind and witty sense of play. But I do not play for pity.

I am not pitiful, I can not embrace what I have never been.

The comments came in under my shared posts with Femi, in my DMs, in my email and for every ten tender, heartwarming, truly congratulatory messages was one snide note hoping maybe to pluck my nerves about wounds that blistered and scabbed and healed in 2021. Wounds I was brave enough to point to in 2022. Wounds I wasn’t moved by in 2023. In 2024, what I have is a large joy and a long memory and no spare gauze.

At the same time, I noticed the people who were absent from the congratulations. Friends who I shared my life with IRL who haven’t sent a text or even liked a story. Friends who aren’t friends now. I feel lighter, even if only a bit less burdened by the idea of less makeup to pay for at my wedding. I feel happy, and also annoyed at what other women think is appropriate to say publicly to me about a joy I’ve shared online for over a year. I resent that anyone should smirk to themselves about what they think they know about me when I contain more multitudes than my deserved aspirations of a happy love.

We all deserve our aspirations. I do not see my aspirations of love as above or below anyone else’s. I don’t shrink back from conversations about dating, I am just more mindful of my single sisters. I don’t leap forward into conversations about established marriages, I am still learning. And onlookers still like to point to my public lessons as an act of failure. Where I have learned, I do not fail.

People are unnecessarily judgmental about Black women who are vocal and vulnerable. Especially about love. Love isn’t loaded. Love isn’t a meritocracy. Love isn’t a party favor or participation trophy for dating. Love isn’t formulaic, even a little bit. Love isn’t even a reward for self work well done. Love, for me, was a series of prayers to myself and God. Love is messy and unwieldy and fun as f*ck. It’s normal to want or not want and to be both running toward it and away from it. It’s expected for people to have complicated relationships with love and still seek it. What I do know is love isn’t shameful. Love doesn’t snicker and point at its less evolved past selves.

I only care to address these stickier feelings once. I don’t apologize for my joy anymore. I don’t experience joy…despite. I am joyful. I have always been a happy bitch. A wholesome, feeling, hoochie auntie, yes I have a flask in my bra, and yes I did make you a pot roast sandwich and sneak it in my purse, and yes it’s still warm that’s cause there are THREE layers of ‘luminumfoil and why don’t that baby have no socks on type of bitch. A ring didn’t unearth that it me. Prior heartbreak didn’t unearth that in me. My sharing either end of the emotional experience spectrum didn’t change that in me. I’ve been worthy the whole time.

And I’m happy to share my happy with my person. I wish this experience on everyone. I want a big love and days full of little joys for everyone. And for me. So, I’ve taken it.

I’m still loving my way through love, and getting it an equal mix of write and wrong. If I make it look like magic, it’s because I’m a damn good creative.

Love didn’t shrink me. It has expanded me. Below the waterline, at the mass of the iceberg. lettuce.

Lettuce Celebrate

A vegetal gimlet-style cocktail with peppery arugula and lime.

SERVES 2

• 4 oz botanical gin or white rum

• 1.5 oz freshly squeezed lime juice

• 1 oz fresh pineapple juice

• 1 oz simple syrup

• handful of fresh arugula, plus more for garnish

• ice

• 2 chilled coupe glasses

In a shaker, combine gin, lime juice, pineapple juice, simple syrup and arugula. Top with ice and shake vigorously, for at least 30 seconds. Strain into chilled coupe glasses and top with a single leaf of arugula. Enjoy immediately.

Pair with a hearty tomatoey pasta dish.