Someone once told me that every life can be measured as an allotment of heartbeats. Some people get more, some people get less, but the average person gets about two and a half billion heartbeats, and when their allotment runs out, they pass away.

At first, I was thrilled by this new way of thinking. I went everywhere with two fingers to my wrist or neck, counting out the discrete units of my life as they ebbed through my radial and carotid arteries. I kept count from the moment I woke up in my bed—while watching tv, shopping for groceries, walking to class, while exercising at the gym in hopes of increasing the total number of heartbeats I could expect in my life. This was how life was to be appreciated, I thought, drawing in every moment close with a white-knuckled grip, to be hoarded, to be treasured, to quite literally make every second count.

I told the girl I loved about my new fascination, hoping that it would take root with her too. But instead she smiled, sidled up to me, gave me a kiss, and told me that she'd been missing me. Later that night we lay together on the couch, watching reruns of I Love Lucy with the audio off. I wasn't sure if she was asleep or awake, but I could feel the slow and steady accordion motions of her lungs pressing against my chest, and the stillness around us was so perfect and absolute that I could hear her heart beating.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine...

And I decided I would much rather spend my life counting the heartbeats of another.