You Can't Go Back Far Enough

I always make the same deal with everyone

Tell me the moment you want to go back to

And I'll let you

And if you can fix things from there

Then you win, things are fixed

And life is good

You pick the wrong moment

And I take you back to the present

Where you're still unhappy

And maybe even more unhappy

Because you guessed wrong

About when to go back

Time is like music

Sometime you think you can pinpoint certain movements

Rhythms, sounds

Until you really break it down

To its smallest pieces

And then you realize

There are hundreds of things happening

That you're not even capable

Of being aware of

So I say to you--

'Okay, you love this person?

Great.

Tell me the moment

When you could have made them fall in love with you too

Because yes, there is a moment

Don't let anybody tell you differently

There IS a moment

Where any two people

Can fall in love with each other

Provided they both seize the opportunity

At the exact same time

So just tell me when that moment is

And I'll send you back there

And you can make it happen

You can both fall in love

And live happily ever after'

And every time

--And I'm not happy about this, believe me

Because I'm rooting for them

I really am, but--

Every time

They pick the wrong moment

And when they pick the wrong moment

And they always do

They come back and they say--

'I know what I did

Please, I know what I did

Give me one more chance!'

And I say, 'No, I'm sorry.

One chance

Is all you get'

'But,' they say, 'I know what to do

I need to go back even further

That's what I did wrong'

And I don't have the heart to tell them

But the truth is

You can't go back far enough

Because ultimately

The place where you need to be

Is the present

That's the moment

When it's most possible

For two people

To fall in love

Now

Right now

There's never a better opportunity

Than right now

But even if I told them that

They wouldn't believe it

Because they wouldn't want to believe it

So I send them on their way

Thinking they picked the wrong moment

Because they did

But I don't tell them

That every other moment after now

Could be the right moment

You don't need magic

You don't need time travel

You don't even need insight or perspective

You just need to seize it

This moment

Now

That's it

That's all you have to do