Today I bit into a green apple given by a coworker and almost cried. Its crisp tartness was a burst of summer in this dreary January week. It tasted like lying down in sprinkler-soaked grass on a hot day.

I haven’t had a green apple in more than a year. Ryan doesn’t like them owing to their aforementioned tartness, so we stick to the red varieties. I didn’t realize the level of my deprivation until just now, sucking down juice so sharp and refreshing I could feel it in my fingernails.

Marriage is hard.

It’s even worse with olives. Ryan despises them; I love all kinds but especially the swollen purple-gray ones that really gross out an olive hater. I’m no less than a martyr at restaurants, where they arrive at other tables paired with delicious cheeses or in shimmering piles on their own. I can’t bring myself to order an appetizer we can’t share, even though Ryan says he won’t mind.

Blue cheese. Artichokes. Mushrooms in most contexts. These are things my husband dislikes that, if I lived alone, would be staples in my fridge. But it’s hard for me to buy them and eat them up before they go bad, so usually I do without. Of course I love Ryan more than I love these things, and people’s tastes change. We’re planning a trip to Italy this fall, so maybe in some little cafe in the countryside, presented with a bowl of glistening orbs plucked from the very trees around us, he’ll experience an olive epiphany. Until then there’s the vodka-soaked consolation prize at the bottom of his martini glass.