Happy Friday: Here is my life. Part 7

Ok, here we go! Peter at the keyboard and we continue with new times. In the floorball team we had big plans for Kallhäll IF so why not expand. We trained 2 days a week and we played in three series every weekend, and one of the series was against adults and this group was only 16 years old, but they will be hardened.

We travelled like crazy between games and it took a lot of time, but we raised 20 crazy teenagers in the suburbs who wanted to smash everything they could get their hands on. We went to tournaments and even played the final against Falun one year, so it went very well. A few years ago, I was told by some of the team that I had been a mentor for them to cope with life, and oh how it warmed, it warmed more than many people can imagine.

The winds are changing

Meanwhile, my son Robin didn't want to live with me anymore because he wasn't happy with us and it was hard. He trained and played in the team but it was to see me. The love with my wife had run out of commitments and I didn't know what love meant anymore. I live on emotion and I need it, LOTS of it and love came like a letter in the post.

We had a lot of parties in our terraced house and one day a girl called Helena came to party with us, and what a nice girl I thought, but nothing more and life went on. During the year there were parties from time to time in our home, and this girl showed up sometimes and suddenly I couldn't get her out of my head. I was 43 years old and stuck being a dad and every day looked the same. My wife was happy with that, but I want a lot more out of life.

Helena

This girl Helena got into my head. I don't know if it was the smell,

the feeling in my stomach or what happened but I HAD to see her again. At a party I invited her personally and it felt like I was 14 years old again. Scared, hand sweating, can't sleep, haha, and I also needed to talk about everything I'm good at, like a damn salesman. OMG I'm going to make a complete fool of myself.

Helena had everything I wanted a girl to have and she was just WOW. We created half an hour in the middle of the night alone and I explained what I was feeling and she felt the same and what a relief. NEW YEAR'S NIGHT, champagne, no fuck the champagne, LOVE, yes LOVE, peace and FREEDOM, finally FREEDOM. After 12 years, a crossroads came and I walked my way towards the future.

New times

Helena and I fell very much in love with each other so there was no going back. After talking to my wife about divorce and all the hard things that came up, I moved out after 3 very difficult months. Attempts at persuasion, seduction tactics, crying, fighting, the kids being upside down, friends and family hating me every day for my actions.

I know I hurt a lot of people but I couldn't live another 40 years to please others. With all the experience I had in my life, I somehow knew that Helena was the one, or we knew. Helena's friends told her that Peter will back down when the pressure comes, but she knew he wouldn't. I took my stereo and my clothes and moved. I had my 2 sons, and Helena had a one-room apartment on St:Eriksplan in Stockholm of 22 square metres and two domestic rats, TOP! What do we do now?

Future

We were subletting a three-bedroom apartment in Sundbyberg and that was the time we had to change the situation. My youngest son Billie, who was 7 years old, came to us on the second day and had his say.

The bed in the apartment for us adults was a 120-wide bed and he didn't like that, because we were almost lying on top of each other. Only my dad and my mum can do that. All three of us went to IKEA and bought a big double bed and then he thought it was ok, CHECK!

Divorce is hard on children and of course we had a lot of problems in the transition, but Helena was fantastic with my youngest son Billie. He went off the rails at school which we thought was due to the divorce, but it later turned out to be a bigger problem than we ever realised.

My eldest son Robin has always walked on rails and done everything right in life, almost scary. Always happy, caring, sensible and he still is today. Helena and I also talked about how we wanted to travel more and where we wanted to go. We both said we wanted to travel in New Zealand and the Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia.

Here we go again, haha

The plan was to completely renovate Helena's flat, sell it and find something bigger in 6 months. Being newly in love, wanting to love and get to know each other emotionally was not on the map, so forget it because we had a "MISSION".

As early as the weekend of the first week we moved in, we started to demolish Helena's studio, and move all her belongings to the apartment we had rented. Every evening and every weekend the renovation was in full swing and Billie was there. Leaving Billie every morning at school in the wrong direction in Stockholm, working, picking up, eating and renovating. Every other week with children and every other week without.

It has to work!

After 3 months it was ready and we got 1.1 million for the apartment and it was one of the better sales in Stockholm at the time. After the estate agent had taken his money, we had one million kronor. Helena does not have a driving licence and did not want to move too far from the city, so we focused on Sundbyberg. Helena was studying and I had remarks so no one could borrow, and of course there were no larger apartments for a million in Sundbyberg, a difficult location!

Just then a sale came up of an old office that was just converted to a condominium with a starting price of 600,000 and 76 square metres. 4 office rooms in bright colours with glass panes between the rooms, a trinket kitchen and a disgusting bathroom. 2.2 metre ceilings and lots of ventilation systems under the tiled ceiling. GRANDIOSO WE MUST HAVE HIM!!!!!

Helena almost fell over backwards but I saw all the possibilities and my brain went into overdrive. I had finished drawing the apartment in 5 minutes in my head, so I wanted to start right away. There was bidding and we got it for exactly one million, so now we had just over two months to organise this.

"We demolished the entire office and all the ventilation equipment in the ceilings that we had bought and there was one load-bearing wall left. Now we had 76 square metres and a ceiling height of 3 metres, and it would be a three-bedroom apartment in baroque style. Helena had some savings, I could get some money and I also had my construction company. As usual in my life, sleep is overrated so full throttle to renovate, but not just any renovation. Helena also loved old style mixed with new technology.

What timing

Meanwhile, Helena's grandmother had moved into a home at 93 years old and she had been buying old furniture all her life. Helena had been to her grandmother in Halmstad and picked out what she wanted, so a lorry of 18th and 19th century furniture came to us during the renovation, which fitted in perfectly with what we had in mind.

We couldn't do the children's room and the bathroom but we could move in, phew. We continued to renovate every day for two more years to get what we wanted. I had previously learnt how to marble, wire, pipe, paint, tile and build. Marbling the living room ceiling was a new challenge because of course there should be marbling in the ceilings if you think 18th century.

In the second year of the renovation, we got the chance to buy a 42 square metre apartment next to us, which had also been an old office. We already had the 5th gear in, so NOW WE'RE GOING! We borrowed on our flat and bought it for 860,000. We demolished everything and continued working around the clock.

There was no time for floorball or overtime work. After 3 months we sold it for 1.3 million. After taxes and expenses we got 300,000 in the account and what are we going to do with the money? TRAVEL! Now our journey begins in earnest. Russia and New Zealand, HERE WE COME!

2003-2006. Now you too can fill up or something wonderful from the week!

Next week: Travelling the world, buying a camper van and social phobia

Did you miss the last Happy Friday? Read the Here is my life part 6