We closed on the house on my birthday. I remember how Sean and I swam in the lake, diving down until our lungs burned and shooting back to the surface laughing. Inside, we ran our hands along the spiral staircase railing and watched the reflection of the sun off the water dancing across the ceiling. “It’s ours,” we said in shock. The house was a place in Vermont with a too dreamy-to-be-believed sleeping loft for the girls, multiple decks, and a waterfront that the girls could swim and kayak in, plus a woodstove and a firepit to feed my love of fire making year round.  It was less than 50 minutes from our house but felt like a world away. Our world. We’d been married ten…

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