the beginning of the scribbles

Sarah Andersen expresses herself through her art, which she calls scribbles. But that’s not all she does. She expressed all of us through her art. She writes about relationships and the struggles of being an introvert and her love for the smell of books. She is insecure and makes blanket forts for reading in and just wants to say home in her pajamas, and she is all of us. Or anyway, she is me.

Through her cartoons, Andersen is honest about her feelings about herself, about school, about her boyfriend, and about snacks. She is willing to talk about her embarrassments and her life choices and how she is worried about her future. She also spends a lot of time thinking of herself as an old woman, looking back over her life and guessing at what she’d say about them when she’s in her 80s.

She talks about the real things that come with being an adult—paying bills and setting alarms to wake up early and dealing with tampons and having to go to work. To her, graduation feels like jumping out of a plane with an unreliable parachute. Running into someone from high school is a trap. Being friends with other artists is both a blessing, as they can help make your work better, and a curse, as you want them to break their fingers so they can’t create better art than you.

Adulting is complicated, and maybe not even all that real, but it does feel endless some of the time. More laundry, more bills, more paperwork, more people. Sometimes you just need a break from adulting, and that’s the perfect time to reach for a Sarah’s Scribbles book and hide in your book fort for a while.

I loved Adulthood Is a Myth. Today was a challenging day, in a challenging week, during a challenging season at work, and I just needed a break tonight. I needed to feel like I was seen and celebrated for being human and tired and vulnerable and messy. I thought I’d be able to turn to Sarah’s Scribbles to get the understanding I wanted, and she did not disappoint. This book was a much-needed break for me, a calorie-free dessert at the end of a long tasteless meal. The more I read of Sarah’s Scribbles, the more I like her, and the more I want to keep reading.