Raise your hand if you're in a relationship. Now raise your hand if you've been in that relationship for more than six months. Now raise your hand if you're in love with your partner. Unsure? Don't worry, a lot of people are. Love is a difficult emotion to identify or describe. They always say that when you know, you just know. I'm here to help you know.

The way I see it, there are six different types of love. Each is felt differently, but each is beautiful and important in its own way. As a self-proclaimed "wordsmith", here's my attempt at verbalizing those emotions.

1. Familial Love

Love for your family can be the source of your strength, or your weakest point. Our families build us up from the second we're born, nurture and care for us, and make us feel proud and loved. Therefore, love for your family is loud and unapologetic. No one is afraid to say they love their little sister or their dad, because a family's love is unconditional. It's a bright, electric blue that slaps you in the face when you open up the paint can. Your family is a mountain. Strong and unwavering, been there since forever and will be there forever more. The love you have for your family is a love you can always fall back on and that will always be there for you, and no one can take that away. Ever.

2. Platonic Love

In my experience, my love for my friends is the purest and easiest form of love. It comes naturally to me. Platonic love is the kind of love that you feel when you meet someone and instantly feel as if you've known them your whole life. It's the kind of love where you know you can tell them anything and it'll only ever bring you closer. It's a driving in the car all night listening to your favorite songs, holding hands when you're on a scary ride at the state fair, cuddling up on a dorm room futon because one of you is afraid of a thunderstorm kind of love. It's a deep, vibrant purple, connecting your hearts, bond growing stronger with every laugh, giggle, and snort. It's the little creek that runs through my college campus, constantly there, never running dry, only swelling bigger with every storm. You will lose friends as you grow; that is a tragic, yet unchangeable fact of life. But those you love will find a way to stick with you, because this kind of love is the best you will ever experience.

3. Romantic Love

Ah, romantic love. The kind of love we all (or most of us) hope to experience in our lives. It can creep up slowly or hit us without warning like a freight train, and there's never anything we can do to stop it. As often as we tell our partners we love them, do we really understand it? And have we ever really experienced this rare emotion in its true form? I believe I've felt it twice in my life. For me, this kind of love is a deep russet red, warm and rich and beautiful. It's a tidal wave that sucks you underwater and threatens to drown you, but every time releases you just before your breath runs out. It's staying up late texting your person, holding your breath while they type, always fighting to decide if that risky text is a good idea. I'm going to tell you now: it is. It always, always is.

4. Love For A Child (Or Pet)

I'll be honest here: I don't have a kid. But I have dogs and a little brother who's young enough for me to act as his third parent at times, and that's enough for me, at least for now. This kind of love is all about devotion. Loving your child means devoting all of your time, energy, and self to protecting that little one making sure they grow up to achieve everything they've ever wanted. Love for a child is a soft periwinkle, holding your baby in your arms while they cry and scream and being nothing but thankful that your baby is healthy enough to make you miserable. It's watching them grow and learn and applauding when they ride their bike without training wheels, shedding a tear when they start high school, having a full-on breakdown in the car after dropping them off in their first-ever home outside of yours. Being a parent simply means that your heart walks around outside your body instead of safely planted in your chest. This love is unconditional. This love is uncompromisable. This love is everything.

5. Platonic-Turned-Romantic Love

Everyone's seen it played out to death in the movies; the girl spends the whole movie chasing down the popular hunk, only to realize that her guy best friend is what she's been looking for all along. Overdone, maybe, but this love is beautiful. You wake up one day and suddenly, unexpectedly, the person who was just a friend is the only one you can ever imagine yourself with. These kinds of love can be tangled and messy, especially if your friend doesn't return your feelings, but they also make for the best relationships if it works out. This love is red-violet; it's big and bold and the most beautiful, rich color you've ever seen. This is the kind of love that makes you picture the two of you cuddling half-asleep on a Sunday morning, making dinner and singing badly to the radio, buying a house and adopting a puppy and stringing up Christmas lights in December. This is the love we all dream of; the love that lasts through the ages.

6. Romantic-Turned-Platonic Love

In contrast, this may be the most painful kind of love. Over the course of days, weeks, months, your love for your partner changes shape until one day your kisses just don't feel the same anymore. You've lost the romance that once made you so happy. You're not sure where it went; all you know is your partner looks at you with shining eyes and all you feel is guilt that you can't give them the kind of love they deserve. This is the "I still want to be friends" breakup and the months afterward spent wondering if maybe, if you tried hard enough, you could love them again. This love is a red so light it's almost pink, standing with a foot on either side of the line. This love makes you swear off love until you meet The One; this love hurts. But this is the love that teaches us the hard way that love sometimes means setting your person free to find someone who will love them the way they want to be loved, even if you must lose them in the process. This love is selfless. This love makes both partners stronger and shows us what love is and what it isn't. This love is an enormous grey cloud, but it has a silver lining if one is willing to look.

Love is hard. It's hard to pin down, to recognize, and sometimes, even to express. Part of love's very essence is that it is abstract. But it is the basis of everything we do. It surrounds us in every aspect of our lives; we love because we are born out of love, and love will always lead us home.