Many people like to measure affection using their arms. They like to spread them out as wide as possible, and tell the other person, “I love you this much!” 

Does that mean taller people love more deeply than shorter ones? Do people with longer fingers get a few more inches of love than everyone else? What about if someone were to use a wooden beam to get more reach? Does that count, or do we ignore tools like that? The rules are so poorly defined. 

So I don’t like measuring affection that way. 

Many people like to measure affection using distance. They like to say things like “I love you all the way to the moon and back!” 

Does that mean that there’s a limit to how much you can love someone? If I said I loved someone to the edge of the universe and back, is that the most I can possibly love them since there’s nothing beyond? The rules are so confining and restrictive. 

So I don’t like measuring affection that way. 

I could go on, listing more and more ways people like to explain their affection for one another, but I’m sure my point has been made. These methods are arbitrary; nonsensical sometimes. They aren’t fit to describe one’s love for another. 

So I won’t use them to describe my love for you. 

I’ll use something else. 

This morning, and each morning I wake up, I have twenty-four hours to spend however I’d like. I thought this was enough. I used to believe it was logical, all of us having the same amount of time, all the hours in the world fairly distributed amongst the people who live in it. 

Until I met you. 

I realised it wasn’t logical that we all had the same number of hours to spend each day. I realised that in order for it to be fair, I should have double that of everyone else. I should have forty-eight hours to spend with you. 

But not even that would be enough. 

I should have seventy-two. 

But not even that would be enough. 

I should have one hundred and forty-four. 

But not even that would be enough. 

See, I don’t love you by an amount equal to the span of my arms, nor do I love you to the four corners of the universe and back. 

I love you for all the hours that exist, have existed, and ever will exist.