10 years ago is a lifetime ago for me. It was a particularly surreal year in a life that is hard to explain to friends who weren’t around then, and so mostly I don’t talk about it, don’t think about it. My life is so quiet now; but my brain has never stopped being loud.
When the year began I was sorting through 100k+ photos after touring the US with @firstaidkitband while planning a move across the country. For many years I’d never lived in any state or country for more than 6 months. I was in a long-term relationship that meant everything to me following a toxic one. 2016 was the beginning of the end of it, a bruise that is still tender when touched. I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before that unravelled, after a dreamlike month in the Gili Islands (was life really that magical? Or is it just how I remember it?) and another month driving across the country, staying with fans and booking shoots. When life felt perfect in our new forest home, I answered my phone to the news I’d lost the only person who shared my scars and particular brand of peculiarity; my brother. (When the anniversary went by recently I said nothing here, 10 years sounds longer than it feels, like it shouldn’t still fucking destroy me, like I shouldn’t still sometimes get drunk and watch his goodbye videos and hysterically laugh/cry, like my hands shouldn’t still be shaking writing this but they are.) I would never get the photos I wish I had of Zake & I, so I poured myself into taking free portraits for strangers who needed them, it consumed my days, it held me together just enough to not fall to pieces.
2016 was also the strangest job of my entire career - I was hired for a project that sounded too good to be true and we were all flown to Europe. For six weeks and across countless cities I would spend almost all of my time with the woman who’d hired me, taking photos of her for projects that (we uncovered toward the end) never actually existed, caught in a bizarre web of lies. Along the way I’d hosted picnics to meet readers of my blog, reunited with my best friends @klaramsoderberg and @l.a.u.r.a.n.a.g.y - mostly now it is all an extraordinary blur.
Continued in comments ⬇️
(An old recording of a silly skype call to our Dad.) Mostly I can steer my thoughts away from my little brother. Not thinking about him is still my favourite coping mechanism. But I can't help the reminders from flooding in. Movie scenes with brothers and sisters fill me with fierce envy. There's a split second when I see a funny image and forget there's no point in sending it to him. His favourite shirt sits in my dresser. If I close my eyes I can still see the gangly way he stood, the wonky way he smiled and the funny way he danced.
This would all be a lot easier if he hadn't been my favourite person, if he hadn't loved Alba & I so much. He was my only brother and it feels so fucking unfair. So unjust that I want to kick and scream that I want him back, like throwing a tantrum might possibly guilt the universe into giving him back.
Sometimes at night the image of him hanging from a tree burns behind my eyes and I can't sleep. It gets easier, but in some ways it doesn't.
I want to be able to open my front door to him beaming. I want to tease him relentlessly about how dorky he is. I want to watch him play those video games he only plays because he knows I'll love the story. I want to see him cuddle Alba again. I want to finally take a portrait of us together. I want to spend all night talking about our messed up childhood and find the humour in it. I want to see him become a lover, a dad, to find his passion, to get his own place, to overcome his depression. I want a different ending to this story. But this is the ending I have.
And though it'd be easier if I'd never had a brother, even in the moments when I can't stop crying, I'm glad I did.
The app I always wished existed is now in beta. If you also have a messy brain and would love a simple visual way to remember what matters, you can download it free. 💘 Comment below and I’ll DM you the iOS invite.
I’m a list person, it’s how I manage the chaos of life, creativity and my ADHD brain. I’m also a visual person, I love emojis & colour coding for both clarity and honestly ✨aesthetics✨. Visual cues are the MOST helpful thing in my day to day life and I have been making them for myself forever.
Like the ‘to go list’ I have stuck beside my front door that stops me from locking myself out of my house (again) or the bedtime routine I made for Asta to check off or the food cards I laser cut for when I couldn’t figure out dinner or my many creative process checklists. Existence is full of too much stuff to remember.
I’ve always thought of my visual lists like cheatsheets for my life. 📋 Something to reference when I forget the steps to a process or need ideas for things to do. I knew an app version could be even more powerful.
And yet in all my years of ‘productivity’ app addiction (where I excitedly set up yet another system that ends up overwhelming me), I haven’t found an app that embraced the magic of visual lists. That really helped me remember things, without complexity or friction or shame or ANOTHER FREAKIN’ SUBSCRIPTION (which Life Tiles will not be).
So a few months ago I decided I’d just build it myself and started obsessively designing my prototypes on Figma. Which led to hundreds of hours (even with coding help from Claude) of building, testing, rebuilding in XCode. 🥵
If I’d known how time consuming and frustrating the process might be I might not have attempted it, but I am so ridiculously happy I did. Because Life Tiles is even better than I ever imagined. 🔥
Now I’m feeling equal parts terrified and overexcited to share this with you. I’d love to hear your feedback, learn how it could fit YOUR life even better; but zero pressure, I truly am just hopeful it helps your life like it helps mine. 🧠
Again, if you want to download the beta (for free) just comment and I’ll send you the invite, or click the link in my profile. 🎉
I wrote this many years ago. I never shared it because I never finished it and it’s unpolished, but it came from somewhere deep & it still makes me feel a lot of things, so I’m sharing it anyway.
A rare snap of us out and without the girls, a friend’s 80’s prom themed birthday party. It still catches me by surprise how madly we love each other, in the most undramatic and silly way possible. 🙃
Each year Alba needle felts me a new friend, the newest being an ode to my love of art toys/blind boxes. I was crying (well I was doing this awkward loud sob I do when I’m trying not to cry-cry) before I even opened the box.
Despite life feeling hard for a while now, it’s easy to feel overwhelmingly freaking grateful for Alba, for Asta, for Peter. When I lost my brother I gained a tendency to not take people I love for granted, even still, and I hope forever.
When @p_s_cheng told me he’d booked family portraits for my birthday, I honestly was a little bewildered. Then he said ‘tintype’ and I got it. Or I thought I did, but it was still somehow even more ethereal and extraordinary than I’d imagined, both the process and the images of our little strange loving family that we will treasure for always.
Taken amidst many (yet not enough) hours of overexcited creative process sharing, from film chemistry to 3d modelling to ceramic lustres to old school lighting - I love meeting people who share deep creative interests and make me feel I’m not so alone in my obsessive childlike passions and endless curiosities. So grateful @theduskinus
Incredibly grateful for these amazing tintype portraits by @theduskinus of @nirr.imi and I.
As photographers, Nirrimi and I rarely have any photos of the two of us. It was such a special experience being on the other side of the camera and rushing to watch the images develop with our whole family huddled in the dark room.
#tintype #photography
My feel-good planners are finally here - not to mention my entire freakin’ site, complete with a vault of genuinely awesome freebies that I’ll keep adding to. 💎
🌹 Find all the goodies on the link in my bio, or directly here → nirrimi.com ←
If I wasn’t so proud of my daily planners, I’d probably still be too bloody terrified to share this, navigating & sharing the AI stuff burned me out, which is why I even built these Quest Cards to begin with. 📝
I built these mini daily planners as a way out of my own productivity-guilt, overwhelm & burnout. They’ve become a super simple habit that makes it way easier for me to prioritise what matters (not just the ‘productive’ stuff, making time to fall down weird ‘pointless’ rabbit holes important too 🌈) without shaming me for being an imperfect person (as if I don’t do that enough myself). 🤦🏼♀️
I’ve been using my Quest Cards imperfectly and inconsistently for months, yet they’ve still had a huge positive impact on my mental health and how I spend my time. That’s why I’ve perfected them to share with you. 👩🏼💻
If you know that ✨special kind of guilt✨ that comes with abandoned planners and productivity apps, or the yucky feeling of not doing the things you planned, these are for you. They’re your antidote to the feeling of never doing enough, treating you like a human being, not a machine.
Following a suicide attempt my brother Zake (who was a gamer & wore his autistic weirdness on his sleeve) told me: “In the ambulance it struck me that life is a game and we get to choose how to play”. 🎮
Being diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety & Autism later in life meant finally understanding that I’m playing life on hard mode, and I think of Quest Cards (+ other visual aids & tools I’m building) as cheatcodes for all of us with unconventional brains navigating the conventional world. ⚔️
⚡️TLDR: Meet my new digital home, feat. compassionate daily planning and free creative assets at ⚡️
I wrote a half-forgotten version of this in my head in the too-many hours it took to fall asleep last night. I was anxious about putting my AI creative project and personal website on hold after a bloody long period of all-consuming burn out.
Usually the things I write in my mind late at night are gone by morning but not this, so I actually wrote it down and I remembered how intense and cathartic it feels to find the right words for such messy feelings and now here it is.
In slides because my AuDHD brain finds them easier to read, and in my handwritten font too. 🌿
Aaaaand oversharing, overthinking, overobsessive me is back. 🌈
I'm here to spread the word about a panel I'm mega proud to be speaking on this coming week. Here are the deets in a ADHD-friendly way (aka: the way everything should be). 🌹
🎙️What: "Embracing ADHD in Creative Life"
⏰ When: 6:30 – 8pm | this Thursday (Sept 21st)
📍Where: @stackwood_ 10 Stack St, Fremantle, WA
🔗 How: Click the link in my Bio | $15 & limited seats.
🙋🏼♀️ Who: 3 badass ADHD creatives | @joanapartyka + @carlaadams + my weirdo self
🎙️ Host: @theconnectioncoach_
I say nope to most talk & interview requests. These days my AuDHD self just wants to stay in my safe little bubble forever. 🙈
But neurodivergence and creativity are my jam, and I'm ready for a rollercoaster chat, diving into the superpowers and frustrations of being the proud owner of a weird brain. 🧠
(PS: Let's just pretend I haven't been irrationally afraid of posting since June 😅😂)
