gender roles
A look at the evolution of gender roles, from Leave It to Beaver, paternity leave, female breadwinners and more.
Notes from the Mind Palace
The house is dead silent, but inside my ribcage, the engine is still throwing heavy sparks. Everyone else gets to slip away into the dark, trading the weight of the day for soft edges, slow breathing, and effortless drift. For them, midnight is a curtain that drops cleanly, bringing an end to the noise. But for me, the dark isn't a relief—it’s a mirror. It is a wide-open canvas where the shadows start to take shape if I sit still for too long, a quiet room where the past likes to pull up a chair and wait.
By Syl De'Vilabout 3 hours ago in Viva
Cosmic Displacement
Beneath the silent canopy of the trees and the cold light of the stars, a lifelong outsider finds her true reflection. There is a heavy, ancient silence that only exists deep beneath the tree canopy after midnight. Out here, away from the synthetic hum of the house, the endless logistics of a large family, and the relentless demands of the daylight world, the air completely changes. I step out into the cold grass, pull my star-covered robe tight against the chill, and look up through the dark, jagged silhouettes of the branches.
By Syl De'Vilabout 3 hours ago in Viva
The Armor of the Metalhead Matriarch
Out here in the predictable daylight of the suburbs, a forty-five-year-old mother of seven stands out. People notice the sheer scale of a massive family and automatically file you away into a neat, conventional box. They assume your identity has been entirely swallowed by the endless cycle of groceries, laundry, and schedules. They think the story ends there.
By Syl De'Vilabout 3 hours ago in Viva
Rearranging the Broken Furniture Inside My Head
I often find myself thinking about what it means to simply not be here—not in this era, not in this specific, heavy space. There is a persistent, quiet displacement in my chest, a feeling that I was either dropped into the world entirely too early or far too late. I exist on the periphery, a permanent outsider who doesn't fit into the conventional puzzles of society, or even within the familiar walls of my own family.
By Syl De'Vilabout 5 hours ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace
People see I am the mother of seven kids and think they understand the shape of my life. They see the headcount, the logistics, the noise. But the truth of raising seven children doesn’t live in the obvious places. It lives in the quiet moments—the ones that don’t make it into photos, the ones nobody else notices, the ones that change me in ways I never say out loud. There’s a version of me that only exists when the house settles and the day finally lets go. That’s the mother I want to talk about.
By Syl De'Vilabout 6 hours ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace
There are people who ask for your truth gently, like they’re cupping water in their hands. They make space for your shaking voice, your half‑formed thoughts, the parts of you that don’t look pretty in daylight. They tell you it’s safe to set things down. They tell you they won’t let anything spill. And for a moment, you believe them. You believe that someone finally sees you without flinching, without judgment, without the instinct to turn your vulnerability into something they can use.
By Syl De'Vilabout 17 hours ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
I’ve lived enough lives for three people, and somehow I’m still here trying to make sense of the noise in my head. Some days it feels like I’m stitching together scraps from every version of myself. — the military kid standing gate guard in Turkey, the cop who learned too much about people’s worst moments, the semi pro football player who hit like a freight train, the gas station attendant who learned everyone's secrets, the 40 year old pool lady and the writer who can’t stop turning her own chaos into stories, the sister who loves too hard, the friend who carries everyone else’s weight even when her own knees are buckling. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I’m still just me — loud music blasting, brain vibrating, fingers typing like I’m trying to outrun my own thoughts. Half the time I’m rambling, the other half I’m building something out of the rambling. It’s messy. It’s real. It’s mine.
By Syl De'Vil3 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
There’s a strange transformation that happens when your kids become adults. You think you’re finally done with the chaos — the sticky hands, the mystery stains, the “is it POOP or chocolate?” or "why is this wet" moments. You think adulthood means peace, quiet, stability.
By Syl De'Vil3 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
I am a hopeless romantic. Not the soft,pink and glittery, “I love long walks on the beach” kind. I’m the kind who believes in soul-recognition — in that moment when you lock eyes with someone and something ancient inside you whispers, Oh. Him. I’m the kind who dreams of a man with steady hands and a voice that feels like home. The kind who wants to be carried, protected, adored, treated like a queen even though I’m built like a demon who learned to survive by clawing her way out of every hell pit alone.
By Syl De'Vil3 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
There’s a special kind of stupid that happens when your brain decides someone is the sun. Not because they are the sun, but because your neurons have staged a coup and declared, “This person? Yeah, we’re gonna obsess over them like a skunk who found an un‑locked trash can.”
By Syl De'Vil4 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
There’s a point where you stop pretending that certain people are good for your nervous system. You stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. You stop waiting for them to show up differently. You stop handing out access like it costs you nothing. Today was that point.
By Syl De'Vil6 days ago in Viva
Notes from the Mind Palace.
There are people you meet once and forget by morning, and then there are the ones who leave fingerprints on your nervous system. The ones your brain files under “important” even when your life is on fire and you’re too young to understand why something matters. I’ve been thinking about those people lately, the ones who slip out of your life but somehow stay lodged under your ribs like a splinter you never quite remove. Not painful enough to scream about, but impossible to ignore.
By Syl De'Vil7 days ago in Viva
