A Valentine Proposal
I initially didn’t think it was anything, until he repeated the words aloud, enunciating each one.
“Will you marry me?”
Maybe if I weren’t just stepping into the age of “adulthood”, I would have deemed this an insult and unaccommodating
I guess times have changed, marrying a man over a decade older than me was as usual as Kim Kardashian’s butt implants, something within me was going to burst open, it was only a matter of when given the circumstance.
Six months into adulthood, at least by Legal authority, I was prime and ready for all things but marriage.
How does one even begin to think of marriage, I was in 300 level, 4-point CGPA, leader of my Fellowship, steadily building a company that caters for the delivery of goods, and I was just touching the surface. The world had already just begun for me, and marriage at that age and point of life was a “Barbaric rudiment to my substantiality” Excuse the grammar, I’m an English major.
“Of course not, I’m only a student”
“It doesn’t matter. This won’t have any effect on your education” Clearly a lie “in fact, I will sponsor your remaining stay in school, find you a good job. I will…”
Hold up
Let’s take a walk on memory lane. Who is this guy and how did we come to meet?
My estate is full of people from all walks of life, government agents, investment bankers, doctors, real estate agents, artists, name it. No one needed to tell anyone I was from the wealthy side of life. Although, it isn’t the first thing you will notice about me. Being the most beautiful girl in my estate (by all standards), I always caught the eye of both men and women at a single glance.
The mysterious man, Pastor Olukorede was one of the wealthy pastors and socialites who lived in our estate. I had caught his eye right from the day he almost ran me over on my way to the mall. Out of guilt, he offered to take me to the mall himself, with the excuse he needed to restock his refrigerator.
I didn’t think anything, after all, he was a pastor. Once a man introduces himself as a ranking man of God, you let your guards down. I may not trust most men, but I would at least give a man of God the benefits of the doubt. He paid for the 30-thousand-naira worth of goods I purchased that day. A God-like gesture I thought.
As time went by, we got more conversational- he invited me to his church, a massive auditorium with over 20,000 congregation members. I had taken the liberty to check him on Google and he had built quite the reputation amongst youths (he was a youth pastor). Honestly speaking, the man could do no wrong.
After about six months break, most of which I spent getting to know Pastor Olukorede, engulfed in his fatherly teachings on the place of the Holy Spirit, Love and Marriage, I was set to return to school.
I had spent 2 months jumping from one church activity to the other, Pastor Olukorede had impacted fire into me. Life as a semi-finalist was taking its blows but I was coming out strong on each end. Pastor Olukorede would sometimes video call me to check on my well-being and encourage me on my walk with God.
I most times pitied him; he had no family (except for his twin nephews who stayed with him for the summer). For a man leading that large congregation, he ought to have a wife and child, he was overdue. Probably he planned on keeping himself for the Lord, only.
Valentine was around the corner, the students of my school were busy organizing their red and white theme events, while others planned on taking their extremities outskirt of the institution’s watchful eyes. I had no plans, my life as a student, Christian leader and entrepreneur made me invisible to matters of the heart.
Maybe, that was my excuse. The real truth was, I wasn’t looking for any man at that moment. I was young, there was still more to see, men to meet. “I’m beautiful after all, who wouldn’t want to date a hot piece like me” I would always encourage myself.
Not that men hadn’t approached me. I wasn’t prepared to limit myself. I had vast choices to make when I finally get out until then LOVE was subjective and a low blow for me.
Valentine’s day happened to fall during student week, a lot of people were excited about the nasty things they were going to do to their loved ones. I, on the other hand, had planned to immerse myself in a cold night of Netflix and Chill over a bunch of sweets. My friends mocked me, but that was more than satisfying for me.
That was my plan until Pastor Olukorede showed up in the visitor’s lounge with a big buffet of flowers, 3 extra bags and a big grind on his face upon my arrival.
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