Scientists have always had the knack for taking pieces of our existence of and placing them in handy measurable units. They say light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. Sound clocks in at 1,115 feet per second. And the speed of time? That’s easy. A quick glance at a any clock will tell us that we are all hurtling toward the future at the speed of 60 minutes per hour. But you already knew that.

Still, there are a variety of subtle and intangible things that move through our lives at various velocities. Take, for example, falling in love. Just what is the speed of love?

For some of us, the speed of love is a million heartbeats per second. At the first sight of that special someone, we are hit with the combined factors of senses and emotion that plunge us into a speeding free fall that can be measured in moments that seem like a lifetime and a lifetime that seems like moments. This is what happened when I first saw the girl who would become my wife.