Just Because

Did you ever receive a text that just made you smile? I get those quite often, but then there are the texts that make your heart beat fast, those texts that make you nervous?! I still get those 5 years later from Sal. Two weeks ago, Sal texted me asking me if I'd like to go to dinner with him, just because. I, of course, said yes! I was super excited and to be quite honest, nervous. Can you imagine, nervous to go to dinner with my boyfriend of 5 years!? He must be doing something right, ha! We're always up for trying new places, and lately Sal wants to surprise me all of the time, so he told me to dress casual, but nice. After much debate about what to wear (I swear this happens every time Sal wants to take me out), I pulled together the perfect outfit, and got a few compliments during the night.

He took me to Sevilla, a local restaurant that specializes in Spanish cuisine, and I won't lie, I was a little hesitant when we first walked in. Not only was it dead for a 6:00pm on a Sunday, but the people that were occupying the tables were much, much older than the two of us. The wait staff barely talked to us, which annoyed me to no end, well that was until we received a pitcher of sangria and escarole soup, both exceptional. The sangria was free, but it was the best sangria I've ever had, hands down. The soup... the soup was out of this world, even though Sal and I were a little nervous to try it, being that we've never had escarole, but we were not disappointed. I ended up enjoying the fact that the wait staff let us have time to ourselves... talking, figuring out what we wanted to eat, and just enjoying the food. For appetizer, we ordered mussels, which has become my favorite, and has always been Sal's favorite. For dinner, I ended up ordering the flounder stuffed with shrimp and crab meat and Sal ordered the paella. My dish arrived with rice and veggies on the side, and Sal also had veggies. The dinner was delicious and the portions were huge! We ended up taking half, if not more, of our meals home. That didn't mean we weren't able to try the dessert though! I was going to try the cheesecake, since I'm a cheesecake fan, but when Sal ordered the orange sorbet, mine didn't seem too appetizing, especially when they both came out of the kitchen. Instead of eating the cheesecake and disappointing myself, we wrapped it up for his dad to eat later, and we shared the orange sorbet, and it was a perfect light cleanse of the palate for after dinner.

We held hands in between courses, and after we were finished. Even though friends of mine have made fun of people that do that, and couldn't believe that Sal and I are "one of those couples," I actually love it. It makes me feel connected to Sal, even when we're sitting across the table from one another. I guess that's something you learn when you grow up... ignore what others think about you. You're not living your life for them, you're living it for you. Afterwards, it took us 20 minutes to snap a picture of ourselves together, since I not only love documenting every thing, but I need it to be perfect too. You'd think Sal would understand this after 5 years, but no... and I don't think he ever will, which is fine with me as long as he smiles in the pictures! (ha!)

It's funny, at the end of the night no matter who pays, we always say thank you to the other person. Just because he's my boyfriend, and just because I'm his girlfriend doesn't mean that we need to buy each other dinner every weekend. It's still something that's appreciated and I love that we let the other person know that every time. And we always, always end the night with a kiss.