(Disclaimer: Some names have been changed to protect their privacy.Some information may be disturbing for some readers. Read at your discretion. 18+)
If you have been following my blog since the first publication, you likely intellectualized an intriguing observation. Then formulated a question in your mind similar to “if she was living with Rosie from 2021, through to, and including parts of 2023, and 2024, how is it she can claim to only exist on a bed mattress since 2017? That, my awesome, astute reader, is a fabulous, and justifiable question.
Without going into too much detail here about my assortment of job choices, I prefer to save that rabbit hole for a different day, I have been existing below the poverty line since 2017. Working for a nonprofit organization was not all it was cracked up to be. I also had a hard time keeping any form of job for too long. I was, and still am challenged with maintaining any form of physical repetition over an extended period of time. Especially when standing in one spot for too long.
When I am sitting or laying down, I shift my position fairly frequently. After standing for a while, I rock back and forth on my legs to avoid cramping. I can walk fairly far. Anywhere from three to five blocks without requiring rest. Depending on the weather, or my stress levels that is. If my stress levels are high, or, the weather is cold and damp, I stop more frequently to prevent leg spasms.
I have a high tolerance for pain overall. It isn’t uncommon for me to walk or drive with a charlie horse, or cramp in my shins, toes, and hands. The nonprofit organization I worked for from 2013 through to 2020 was accommodating to my needs. Their understanding of my then, physical restraints, was welcomed, and overly appreciated. My other employers, before, during, and after the nonprofit organization, were kept unaware of the physical restraints I was working with. I chose to keep them ignorant with regards to the health challenges I was facing. All I cared about back then was making my own independent income.
Back in June, 2017, I was couch surfing until I was able to secure enough income to acquire a tiny, four room apartment, for myself, my daughter, and eventually, my daughter’s boyfriend at the time. After that, a new baby arrived, and then a small puppy. Talk about cramped quarters.
The front room of that apartment was the living room. There was an inner door that exited the living room into a little square foyer. The size of one full grown adult. The door connected to the outside was a buggar to keep closed. There was a mini snowbank in that foyer each winter we were there. We were unable to lock the outside door. All the physical safety we had in that apartment was one lock on the interior door at the only entrance inside, and outside, of the apartment. That apartment was most definitely not up to safety standards, by any means.
Outside of the broken exterior door was a pedestrian sidewalk. Next to the sidewalk was a small patch of grass before the busy city street. We made that front room my bedroom. I slept beside a round-about traffic circle right outside my window. Often I would hear loud motorcycles, car engines, and buses drive past my window at all hours of the night. I slept on a queen sized bed mattress with no solid supporting box spring. I had a bed frame, sort of. Just no supporting legs to hold the weight of me and the mattress on top.
The place we were living in was so tiny, we ended up with a ton of stuff unpacked. I decided to be creative with this conundrum. There is a solution to everything after all. I took all the stuff we weren’t likely to use and stuffed them in any way I could under where the mattress would be, and where the supporting legs were supposed to be. I fitted boxes, garbage bags full of clothes and bedding, my memory chest that my dad made me out of wood, and a ton of other stuff inside the bedframe. I crammed all of it in, and leveled it the best I could.
Sleeping on the mattress was wonky at best. The underneath wasn’t exactly even. There were many days of seeing cockroaches and other critters scurrying when the lights came on in that apartment as well. There was one night when I awoke from a sleep in the middle of the night, only to see a mouse sitting a couple of inches away from my face, on my pillow. Damn that traumatized me. Thinking about that squeaky little friend even now makes me cringe a little inside. I know I would jump, if not panic, at the sight of another mouse. The mouse was innocent. Mice still represents a little villain in my mind because of that night.
Liv and her boyfriend slept in the next room. You could get to her room by going through the front doorway, make an immediate left, walk past my bed about another three feet or so, and there, you would find yourself in the doorway to my daughter’s room. The bathroom would be to your immediate left whilst standing in the doorframe. No steps required.
The bathroom was somewhat of an oversized square, with a toilet, sink, and a disgusting bathtub that we couldn’t get clean to save our lives. After entering Liv’s room, and after walking another eight steps or so, you would reach the 8×8 foot kitchen. The kitchen was also situated on the left. The kitchen hosted a three to four feet long countertop, three cupboards for dishes and food, a small camper sized stove with two working burners, an apartment sized refrigerator, a window, and a small corner for a trashcan. That’s it. That was the kitchen and that was our apartment. It was a dilapidated bachelor sized apartment to fit three grown adults, a baby, and a dog, nice and cozy. We lived there from July, 2017 to June, 2020.
The first place Rosie and I lived in was a small two bedroom apartment he acquired. Rosie chose that apartment after he had received an affirmative response to his request for a military transfer back to Montreal in 2018. I didn’t know at the time that he placed the request to move and had plans to move back to Montreal with his entire family. I was naively ignoring the signs in his plan to leave me behind in New Brunswick. Rosie had every plan to leave me behind. He hasn’t told me that he only intended to keep me as a discretion in a past New Brunswick life, to this day. The beautiful guiding voice, Clairity, inside my head illuminated this truth for me. I trust Clairity’s voice today.
I remember when Rosie was choosing his apartment near Montreal. He would call me in New Brunswick from Montreal to ask my opinion on the place, and the area. As well as, the choice between two different apartments within the same complex. He would ask my opinion often, which I truly loved. He also asked questions on my insight anytime he needed my intuition. Rosie knew right from the second date we had that I knew things without people telling me. I told him so. Even though I was heartbroken that he left, and lonely without him, I still answered his questions with my intuition. I helped that man anyway I could. I was under the impression we were in a long distance relationship. He obviously had the intention of letting me believe that whilst choosing to live single.
Looking back now, I know Rosie’s ego saw my ability to know things without people telling me as a challenge. He loved a challenge . He could be quite competitive at times. My intuition scared him at first. Then he realized he could get away with cheating on me too, or at least he thought he could. Rosie’s perception caused him, and his subconscious sex addiction, to take high risks.
The truth always comes out in the end. Either the deceiver shows their true colors, or God, and the universe’s remarkable creative ways, show me the truth. I may not have always trusted my intuition or listened to that inner voice. Nonetheless, when I did listen to Clairity, my intuition was often on point. I’d say about eighty percent of the time anyway. I may not have gotten the exact timeframe of when things were going to happen correctly. What I did say was going to happen did inevitably happen at some point.
The truth is coming out now for anyone to read, Rosie included. That’s if the universe wants to make him aware that this blog even exists that is. The truth always comes out. Rosie wasn’t focused on how smart I can be. He was focused on my uncanny ability to be right when I shouldn’t have even known in the first place. I can also see images in my head and receive information about people, places, and things whilst at a distance. All I have to do is focus enough on a person’s or an object’s energy, and details about them would start flowing in. I learned how to block the urge to energetically snoop. I control my focus when I do read energy. I chose not to invade Rosie’s privacy. I promised I wouldn’t. He took full advantage of my integrity to keep my promises and took full advantage of my intuition. I have them to him freely. I did keep my promise to not invade his privacy. To this day I have not invaded his privacy. The universe found a way to show me instead.
After my feedback of the two apartment choices he showed me, Rosie inevitably chose the apartment on the third floor. The apartment had an indoor, and outdoor, stairwell walk up in replacement of an elevator. I liked his apartment. It was nice. It was cluttered with a bunch of stuff accumulated over the years though. I must admit, that took some work to get accustomed to. I much prefer cleanliness and order. I grew up with a strict mum who kept her house tidy. My brother and I had many chores throughout the week when we were teenagers. In Rosie’s place there were winter tires behind his couch, a full sized punching bag, a large table hockey game, foosball I think it’s called?, and a poker table. They were all placed strategically around the conjoined living room and dining room space. It had kind of resembled order.
Rosie had a collection of products that he couldn’t sell from a few of his business ventures he had long since given up on under the gaming table. Along with other sorts of tools, military gear, and so on. Rosie and Jean were definitely living in a proverbial bachelor’s pad.
I could look past the clutter. I liked to organize things so it made for a good home project. What often annoyed me was after each time I cleaned up after him or his children, they would turn around and disorganize it all over again. My efforts were not under any consideration when I was there. I can understand it from the kids’ perspective. They weren’t taught that level of emotional aptitude to understand how much it would bother me. They simply mimicked what their dad taught them. As mentioned, their parents lacked empathy, severely.
Both Gemma and Rosie suffered from low emotional intelligence. Rosie wasn’t stupid nor ignorant to his inconsideration of my efforts. I swear sometimes he would place his items on a surface I had just cleaned to see how much disrespect I was willing to tolerate from him. On the other hand, perhaps that is a bit of my ego talking. I am still healing from this entire ordeal with Rosie over the years. More often than not he was absent minded, focused on his plethora of projects, and chasing women. He rarely thought about how I was feeling, nor what I was doing. I often complained to him that his life was too busy for me. He didn’t have time for me. I would say “Rosie, you have too much on your plate. Your plate’s full. There is no room for me in your life”.
Rosie rarely asked me anything to get to know me. All he cared to know was what I was willing to offer up. If it was interesting enough for him, he would listen. Whatever information I could give him that he was looking for to help him, he soaked it in. Ask him if my brother is older or younger than me, and by how many years?, he’d respond with “I pass”.
When you first entered Rosie’s apartment you were greeted by a small tiled area that housed a faux marble bench, with a bunch of shoes on it, on against the wall on the left hand side. On your right was a mirrored sliding glass doored closet, that hardly closed, due to the pact in stuff inside of it.
I was often concerned of something falling on my head anytime I opened that closet door. On the flip side, some of that stuff was the stuff I had decided to migrate to his storage unit downstairs. That congested closet gave me the opportunity to see Rosie’s rainbow of fantasy rubber colors. I am grateful for that packed closet today. It eventually served me well.
When standing in the tiled squared door area, and looking into the apartment , you would see the dining room with a window directly in front of you. When you looked slightly right, you would see his living room. He had sliding glass doors to a balcony off of the living room that faced the front entrance of the building and the main street. To the left of the entrance of the apartment, and a couple of steps down the hallway, you would come to an elongated kitchen on your right. It had a small window that overlooked a partially blocked view of the street and driveway to the building’s back parking lot.
I looked out that window when I saw Rosie talking with someone on his cell phone. I asked the voice inside my head who Rosie was talking to. The voice said he was talking to a woman. My stomach fluttered in that moment. I took a mental note and kept quiet about it.
Back to the kitchen. It had plenty of countertop space, a small sink to wash dishes, with a little squared and shelved opening to see and converse through into the dining room. It had a decent sized fridge, a second hand but decently maintained stove, and plenty of cupboard space up top and down below for food and dishes.
Straight across from the kitchen and on the other side of the hallway was the bathroom. It had a gorgeous jetstream jacuzzi tub. The bathroom was spacious with a typical toilet and a glass framed cornered walk-in shower. I was in both the shower and the bathtub a lot. Dare I say, it was my favorite room in Rosie’s place.
When you go further down the hall, without turning, you would enter Rosie’s son, Jean’s, bedroom. Directly left was Rosie’s bedroom, and where I spent most of my time. Inside Rosie’s bedroom was another cramped closet, a queen sized bed, plastic exposed shelves for my stuff, which I brought with me, a long boy for Rosie, with five built in dresser drawers, and a sliding glass door that led out to the balcony, and onto the outdoor staircase.
The reason I spent most of my time in Rosie’s bedroom was by choice really. Not a nice choice to make. A choice nonetheless. His living room sofa was a metal framed futon. When I sat on it the metal frame would start to hurt my body within about thirty minutes or so. His dining table chairs were metal framed with thinly cushioned seats. They were business style folding chairs. One of the chairs had a broken metal framed cushion. They were uncomfortable as hell to sit on for longer than a meal. Rosie sat there often. I’m not sure how he did it. The soldier in him I guess? It was either that or my tolerance for discomfort was, and probably still is, a lot thinner than I thought.
I use a heated blanket on top of the fitted bedding, for my legs, when in bed. I have been slowly baking my muscles on a heated blanket since 2022. Being exposed to any slight draft for too long, including a ceiling fan, can give me cramp. Mattresses and bed sheets feel cold as ice on my body after a very short period of time. It doesn’t matter the season. Any kind of cold damp weather is the worst for this sensitivity. Hot water is my savior. Hence my being in Rosie’s jacuzzi tub frequently, dealing with cramp.
On occasion, I would be in there enjoying a drink with music playing on my phone. Lit candles were usually present on my soak days. If I was in the tub with no candles it was because Rosie had to put me in the tub fully clothed, whilst having a severe cramp attack. If it wasn’t that, I was sitting on the side of the tub with my feet in the water, massaging a lighter, yet still painful cramp out of my calf and feet.
Just like in New Brunswick when Rosie would go back to Moncton to be with his family on the weekends, Rosie went to his mother’s in Montreal every weekend I lived in that apartment. I lived there from July 2021 up until early April, 2023. I was left alone in his apartment more often than not. In addition to Rosie working outside the apartment everyday of the week, he told me his mum didn’t have room for me at her place, and that he needed to be there to help her with her daily tasks.
I call bullshit. Yeah, he probably helped her during the day. At night he was probably having is weiner wanked. Being alone often, I chose to be on the warm blanket on his bed. Rather than anywhere else in that apartment. I went from the bedroom to the kitchen, to the bathroom, then back to the bedroom. If I wasn’t doing that, I was running errands for him or doing some form of arts and crafts with the kids. I took care of Rosie’s son when he wasn’t home.
I also found myself often being the one to help his daughter with her homework. If I wasn’t doing those things, I was walking aimlessly around secluded areas with a joint in one hand and a vape in the other. I kept the smoking joints and the vaping a secret from him at that time. Joints help me to be more active during the day and help me to sleep better at night. Without it, I tended to toss and turn due to constant fluttering in my legs that lead to body aches, and eventually cramp.
It isn’t uncommon for me to jolt out of bed with a charlie horse from the ice cold mattress my body would have been feeling whilst I was asleep. I also walked everywhere when I was living in Rosie’s apartment. I would walk slowly for miles and miles each day. I walked often just to have some resemblance of an active, out of the house, life.
Walking has been my form of adventure since 2017. My ex-husband Bill took my car back then and never bothered to return it to me. The only car I drove when I was with Rosie was his car when he needed me to run an errand for him. Rosie learned about my friends, Mary Jowana and her sidekick Vapolicious, when I moved back in with him in August 2023. I didn’t tell him about vaping and smoking weed back then. I lied by omission because he had quit smoking. I feared being judged by him. With that fear firmly in place, I decided to be sneaky.
I had quit smoking too. In fact, Rosie inspired me to quit. I am grateful to him for that. The back and forth drama between Quebec and New Brunswick and stresses, on the other hand, made it a challenge to stay smoke free. I despise the smell of stale cigarettes, so I opted for a vape when my daughter offered. I’ve been vaping and smoking some weed each day ever since.
When I did leave Rosie in 2023, I moved back in with my daughter Liv. She had moved into a house further up the hill and closer to the midsection of town by this point in my journey. Her and her family were living in a nice bungalow. Liv and her family had the basement apartment at first. They lived downstairs in that bungalow whilst I was visiting the Montreal area to help Rosie, and his mom, out with the care of Jean in 2020. When I came back to Liv’s in April of 2020, Liv was still occupying the basement apartment with her family. It was an open concept, square shaped apartment, with three bedrooms, and a wee little bathroom that hosted a toilet, a sink, and a stand-up shower.
Liv and her family took over the upstairs apartment shortly before I came back from the 2023’s condom revelation. Even though the upstairs living areas were much larger, Liv was also pregnant with her second child, whilst also maintaining a household consisting of a baby, a partner, a full grown pitbull labrador mixed dog, and a friend with her special needs daughter living in the basement apartment below. Again, Liv’s place offered rather cramped quarters.
I kept to myself in my designated room more often than not. I stayed there until Rosie came chasing after me after I left in 2023. I will get to that shocking event in this blog series, eventually. I moved back in with Rosie after his tactful texting, and heroshima love bombing. I had a burst of energy leading me down a false promise of love and commitment once again when I made the decision to forgive him for his multiple infidelities. Big, huge, ginormous, lesson learned. An eye opening rabbit hole that was well worth hopping into.
When I moved back in with Rosie in August, 2023, he didn’t tell me his and his mom’s name were on the mortgage of the new house he bought. I found out days after moving in that his mom was the owner of the house as well. She certainly acted like she was the sole owner of that house too. I wasn’t welcomed there. She had all of the upstairs with Rosie’s children. Rosie and I had a small little one bedroom apartment downstairs in the basement. The other rooms in the basement were occupied with not only all his stuff but his mother’s plenty of stuff too. They were both borderline hoarders in my perception. You could hardly open a door to one big room down there without having to use force to knock something over.
The little living room area in our living space consisted of his desk, computer equipment, and that God awful black futon sofa. Off the living room was a wee little bathroom which housed a toilet, sink, and a one person stand up shower not big enough for anyone with great height above six feet tall.
The small kitchenette was situated in the walkway between the bedroom and the living area. The walkway was the length of the bathroom. The little kitchen and the bathroom shared the same wall. There were two doors in or out of the apartment. One doorway led to the front entrance of the house. You could then walk up the split-level staircase to either the front door, or the upstairs living areas. The other door to our apartment was only three-quarter width. The doorway was situated between our bedroom and another cluttered games room. Which then led to the back stairwell to a side entrance of the house.
Rosie’s kids would pop into our space constantly. There was very little privacy when the kids were home and awake. They required constant attention. At least Alyssa did. Her and I would hang out together quite a bit. We enjoyed each other’s company overall.
I spent at least seventy-five percent of my time using Rosie’s bed as a chair. It got to the point where I would secretly cringe at the idea of having to go upstairs. I hid in the basement. I chose to confine myself to the basement to maintain my energy, whilst respecting Rosie’s mum’s energy upstairs. I also used the heat blanket a lot down there because it often felt damp. The futon was so freaking uncomfortable for me. More often than not, when we were in the little living room together, Rosie sat in his comfy office chair. I sat on the futon. Rosie would have let me use his chair more often if I asked him to get up. It wouldn’t have been without a raised eyebrow and a quick remark of some kind towards me though. Rosie liked to dig at me from time to time. I chose peace and being pain free, so bed it was. I trust this insight helped to clear up any confusion over my statement about living on a mattress since 2017?
Today, as mentioned in previous blogs, I am living with my daughter Liv, and her partner, two small children, and a full grown gentle giant of a dog, in a tiny, half-sized, two bedroom, basement apartment. I use my grandbabies’ bedroom. I sleep on a mattress on concrete. The same mattress from 2017. With no box spring nor bedframe this time. I share this room with my granddaughters in the sense that some of their toys are here. They of course are welcome to come and go as they please. After all, it is technically their room, and I am their proud nana.
I love those babies to the moon and back. The girls sleep in their parents’ bedroom. Liv and Aiden switch between sleeping with the girls and sleeping on the sofas in the small living room area. Makes for a bleak sex life for them I’m sure. Makes a little more sense now that I have explained my mattress survival claim, doesn’t it?
Now back to the regular scheduled program. Five days and nights of mental torture.
LivWithClairity 
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