A story of Tree, Leaf, and Wind

I read this story sev­eral years ago, and still enjoy it. It was told that the story was orig­i­nally from a stu­dent in Tai­wan, yet I don’t know. Here it is…

Leaf depar­ture is because of Wind pur­suit. Or because Tree didn’t ask her to stay?

Tree

The rea­son I’m called Tree is because I’m good at paint­ing trees. Over time, I started to use a tree on the right hand cor­ner as a trade­mark for all my water­color paint­ings. I dated five girls when I was in Pre-University. There’s one girl whom I really love a lot. How­ever, I never dared to woo her. She doesn’t have a pretty face, a good fig­ure or out­stand­ing charm. She is just a very ordi­nary girl.

I like her. I really like her. I like her inno­cence. I like her frank­ness. I like her cute­ness. I like her intel­li­gence and her fragility. The rea­son why I did not woo her is because I felt some­body so ordi­nary like her is not a good match for me. I’m afraid that all the good feel­ings I have for her will van­ish after we get together. I’m also afraid that the gos­sips that fol­low after we get together will hurt her. I felt that if she’s meant to be my girl, she will be mine ulti­mately and I don’t have to give up every­thing just for her. The last rea­son made her accom­pany me for three years. She watched me go after dif­fer­ent girls as I made her heart cry for three years.

She bumped into us when I was kiss­ing my sec­ond girl­friend. She was embar­rassed but man­aged to smile and urged us to con­tinue before run­ning off. Her eyes were swollen like wal­nuts the next day. I pre­tended not to know what caused her tears but laughed at her for her swollen eyes for the whole day. She cried alone in the class­room after every­one left for home. She didn’t notice me return­ing from soc­cer train­ing to get some­thing from the class­room. I watched her cry for an hour or so.

My fourth girl­friend didn’t like her. They once got into a quar­rel. Based on her char­ac­ter, I know she’s not the type that will start the quar­rel. How­ever, I still sided with my girl­friend. I shouted at her and her eyes were filled with shock. I didn’t care about her feel­ings and walked off with my girl­friend. In spite of the inci­dent, she still con­tin­ued laugh­ing and jok­ing with me like noth­ing has ever hap­pened the next day. I know that she’s very hurt but she didn’t know that my heartache is as bad as hers.

I asked her out when I broke up with my fifth girl­friend. After going out for a day, I told her that I have some­thing to tell her. Coin­ci­den­tally, she told me that she has some­thing to tell me too. I told her about my break up and she told me about her new boyfriend. I know her new boyfriend. He has been pur­su­ing her for a while. He is a very cute guy full of energy, lively and inter­est­ing. His pur­suit has been the talk of the school.

I can’t show her how much my heart aches but can only smile and con­grat­u­late her. When I reached home, the heartache was so strong that I couldn’t tol­er­ate it. It’s like a heavy rock on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to shout but I couldn’t. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I broke down and cried. At that point of time, I thought about the num­ber of times I had seen her cry for the man that didn’t acknowl­edge her presence.

Dur­ing grad­u­a­tion, I read a sms in my hand phone. It was sent ten days ago when I broke down and cried. I haven’t read it since then.

It says, “Leaf’s depar­ture is because of Wind pur­suit. Or because Tree didn’t ask her to stay.”

Leaf

Dur­ing Pre-University days, I like to col­lect leaves. Why? Because I felt that it takes a lot of courage for a leaf to leave the tree she has been rely­ing on for so long. Dur­ing the three years of Pre-University, I was on very close terms with a guy. We were not in a rela­tion­ship but were best bud­dies. How­ever, when he had his first girl­friend, I learned to develop a new feel­ing I should never have learned — Jeal­ousy. The sour­ness in the heart can’t be described by using a lemon. It felt like a hun­dred rot­ten sour lemons. It was sour­ness at the extreme limit. They were only together for two months. When they broke up, I hid my strong sense of hap­pi­ness. It was short lived as he got together with another girl within a month’s time.

I like him and I know he likes me. How­ever, why won’t he pur­sue me? Since he loves me, why didn’t he make the first move? When­ever he has a new girl­friend, my heart will hurt. Time after time, my heart was hurt. I started to sus­pect that this is a one-sided love. If he doesn’t like me, why does he treat me so well? He’s nice­ness is beyond what you will nor­mally do for a friend. Lik­ing a per­son is very heart wrench­ing. I know his likes and his habits but I can never fig­ure out his feel­ings towards me. You can’t expect me to con­front him right?

Despite that, I still want to be by his side. I wanted to care for him, accom­pany him and love him. I hoped that one fine day, he will love me. It’s like wait­ing for his phone call every night and wait­ing for him to sms me. I know that no mat­ter how busy he is, he will make time for me. Hence, I waited for him. The three years were the hard­est to go through and I really wanted to give up. Some­times, I won­der if I should con­tinue wait­ing. The pain, the hurt and dilemma accom­pa­nied me for three years.

At the end of my third year, a sec­ond year junior started to pur­sue after me. He pur­sues me relent­lessly every­day. It came to a point where my feel­ings towards him changed from out­right rejec­tion to being will­ing to let him have a small foot­ing in my heart. He’s like a warm and gen­tle wind, try­ing to blow a Leaf away from the Tree. In the end, I real­ized that I didn’t want to give this wind only a small foot­ing in my heart. I know this Wind will bring this badly bat­tered Leaf far away to a bet­ter land. Finally, I left Tree but Tree only smiled and didn’t ask me to stay.

Leaf’s depar­ture is because of Wind pur­suit. Or because Tree didn’t ask her to stay.

Wind

Because I like a girl called leaf. Because she’s so depen­dent on tree, so I have to be a gust wind. A wind that will blow her away. When I first met her, it was one month after I trans­ferred to the new school. I saw a petite per­son look­ing at my seniors and me play­ing soc­cer. She will always be sit­ting there dur­ing ECA time look­ing at him regard­less if she’s alone or with friends. There’s jeal­ousy in her eyes when he talks with other girls. There’s a smile in her eyes when he looks at her. It became my habit to look at her just like how she likes to look at him.

One day, she didn’t appear. I felt some­thing was amiss. I couldn’t explain the feel­ing except that it’s a kind of uneasi­ness. The senior wasn’t there as well. I hid out­side their class­room and saw my senior scold­ing her. He left her with tears in her eyes. I saw her at her usual place look­ing at him the next day. I walked over and smiled at her. I took out a note and gave it to her. She was sur­prised. She smiled and looked at me before accept­ing the note.

She passed me another note and left the next day. It read,

“Wind couldn’t blow her away because Leaf’s heart is too heavy.”

“It’s not that Leaf’s heart is too heavy. It is because Leaf never wanted to leave Tree.”

I replied her note with this state­ment and she started to accept me slowly.

She talked to me, accepted my presents and phone calls. I know that the per­son she loves is not me. How­ever, I kept up my per­se­ver­ance as I believe that one day I will make her like me. Within four months, I have declared my love for her no less than twenty times. Every time, she will divert the topic away. Nev­er­the­less, I never give up. I decided that if I want her to be mine, I will def­i­nitely use all means to win her over. I can’t remem­ber how many times I declared my love to her. Although I know she will try to divert the topic away, I still bear a small ray of hope every time as I hope that she will agree to be my girlfriend.

Dur­ing my last dec­la­ra­tion of love for her, I didn’t hear any reply from her over the phone.
I asked, “What are you doing? Why didn’t you reply my pro­posal?“
She said, “I’m nod­ding my head.“
“Ah?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“I’m nod­ding my head” She replied loudly.
I hung up the phone, dressed up quickly and rushed to her place in a taxi. I hugged her tightly the moment when she opened her door.

Leaf’s depar­ture is because of Wind pur­suit. Or because Tree didn’t ask her to stay.

Moral

In love, we win very rarely, but when love is true, even if you lose, you still win just for hav­ing the tin­gle of lov­ing some­one more than you love your­self. There comes a time when we stop lov­ing some­one, not because that per­son has stopped lov­ing us but because we have found out that, they’d be hap­pier if we let go.…

Why do we close our eyes when we sleep? When we cry? When we imag­ine? When we kiss? This is because THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS IN THE WORLD ARE UNSEEN.

There are things that we never want to let go of, peo­ple we never want to leave behind, but keep in mind that let­ting go isn’t the end of the world.

It’s the begin­ning of a new life. Hap­pi­ness lies for those who cry those who hurt, those who have searched and those who have tried. For only they can appre­ci­ate the impor­tance of the peo­ple who have touched our
lives.

A great love? It’s when you shed tears and still you care for them, it’s when they ignore you and still you long for them. It’s when they begin to love another and yet you smile and say, “I’m happy for you.” If love fails, set your­self free, let your heart spread its wings and fly again. Remem­ber you may find love and lose it, but when love dies, you never have to die with it.

The strongest peo­ple are not those who always win but those who stand back up when they fall. Some­how, along the course of life, you learn about your­self and real­ize that there should never be regrets, only a life­long appre­ci­a­tion of the choices you’ve made. Lov­ing is not how you for­get but how you for­give, not how you lis­ten but how you under­stand, not what you see but how you feel, and not how you let go but how you hold on.

It’s more dan­ger­ous to weep inwardly rather than out­wardly. Out­ward tears can be wiped away while secret tears scar forever…

It’s best to wait for the one you want than set­tle for one that’s avail­able. It’s best to wait for the right one because life is too short to waste on just someone.

3 Cheers 2 True Love

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