It is What It is (The Last Man Standing)

Ndedi is a young girl growing up in Cameroon and in these lines she takes us through the life experiences that shaped her thinking of now. Mainly, finding and losing love, being disowned by her mother, the only parent she had left.

Her new set of thoughts is in clear discordance With all that she has ever known but what is the purpose of life, if not to be lived as our authentic selves? Ndedi wonders. She blames herself for keeping a secret that supposedly led to the loss of her lover.

"Why and when do people start keeping secrets? No one is born with any secrets after all. I mean, what secret could a new-born possibly have? That they deliberately bit on the mother's nipple, or tore her body apart on purpose while she was giving birth to them? Don't we come into this world with our minds just as naked as our bodies? How do we learn to withhold secrets; what are secrets to begin with? What are the criteria we use to determine what is worth hiding? Is it the way others would see us? The way we ideally see ourselves? The way we see ourselves through the eyes and ideals of others, society? As I continued musing on the information I'd purposefully withheld from Mama all along, I kept wondering; was it worthwhile? All the hassle, the pretence, the hurt of being untrue to self? "

In this story she grieves, she lives, she loves, she laughs, she cries, she thinks, she questions, she doubts, she reckons and most importantly she grows and learns to think for herself.
Allow Ndedi to tell you her story herself.