During my constant moving around I landed a job at a retirement home in Florida as a maintenance man. It seemed to fit the need perfectly at the time as they provided a furnished apartment for me with utilities paid along with a salary. I finally had a job and a place of my own where the girl inside me could have her freedom everyday from 3 pm until 8 am the next morning and every weekend. Everything went well for me and the depression became less of an issue for about a year until I met my second wife. I figured I would tell her upfront that I dressed in female clothes after work and it helped my depression. She told me that it didn't matter to her that I did that and I thought I had found the perfect relationship. Boy was I wrong. After we were married about 3 months she informed me that it was no longer acceptable and while I was working she disposed of everything I had accumulated. Here I was again keeping my inner self locked away due to trying to please someone else. About 8 months into this marriages I started finding reasons to stay away from home because of the resentment I felt towards her. Again the heavy drinking moved in and during one of my binges, I agreed to help a couple friends move some things since I had a truck. Since they lacked storage space I brought the things to my house and put them in the shed. My then wife and I had one of our usual nightly arguements over the way she was treating my son who was down visiting us for the summer so I told him to get in the truck and we took off to go stay at my brothers house for the weekend. When we returned on Sunday I was greeted at the door by the sheriff's department because the items I was storing were stolen from the house I went to with my so called friends. Needless to say I spent the night in the county jail until I could bail myself out the next morning.

  I ended up getting probation out of it along with restitution due to it being my first criminal offense. I imediately left my wife since she was the one who turned me in by her own admittance. A couple months later I was again divorced and trying to figure out what I was going to do and battling depression. I had a job working as a cook at a local restaurant that didn't pay bad but it wasn't enough to cover everything. Back to the alcohol I went like I always did when I needed a crutch to lean on. I'm thankful to one of the waitresses and her husband for having enough concern about my condition mentally to have a wellfare check done on me by the police. Had they not intervened the way they did I might not be alive today to be writing this. When the police came to check on me I was nearly unconsious so they did what was called a Baker Act and put me into protective custody until I sobered up the next day they transported me to a crisis center where they diagnosed me with Manic Depression. After spending a week there I was allowed to return home with instructions to follow-up with a psychiatrist. I tried this route for a couple months but didn't feel comfortable with him so couldn't open up about having this feeling of a girl locked inside me.

  Again I wandered aimlessly from state to state relying on odd jobs here and there in order to eat. Finally in 1991, I settled down in Florida and was able to hold a job for a while. I was living in a one room apartment where I shared the bath with a wonderful couple in a poorly renovated historic hotel. The only thing I saw the place had worthwhile was a small restaurant and a bar on the ground level. My days consisted of going to work, coming home and grabbing a fast sandwich and spending the rest of the night in the bar until closing time them stumbling up the stairs to my room to pass out. It was in this bar that I met my third and final wife.