I bought my current mattress in another era. It was early 2017, and my son and I had just moved into a new place with my then-boyfriend (now-husband). His mattress, an ancient, pokey, box-spring nightmare, had to go. So we embarked on a new mattress shopping journey. This journey involved passionate debates and spreadsheets and led us eventually to the Original Bear mattress. Bear was one of a handful of new direct-to-consumer mattress brands that had sprung up back then.