by Shanthi Sekaran

The year was 2002. Id just finished my writing MFA, and was about to see my first short story published in a bona fide, industry-sanctioned fiction anthology. I was 23 years old, and in my myopic opinion, I was on my way to literary stardom, glamorous book parties, the big leagues. The literary big leagues, as far as I knew, were inhabited by graying New Yorkers and new sensationship, young, hot authors who traveled in packs and drank Pisco Sours in Williamsburg and argued about books by Nabakov that no one else had read. All I had to do was write and publish my first novel.

Cut to 2009.

It was 5:40 a.m. when I heard the predictable rattle of a crib frame, the happy squawks that welcomed each morning. My 1-year-old son was awake for the day, punctual as ever. I stumbled into his room and picked him up, then sat down again to nurse. He always had a smile for me. He delighted in the sight of his barely conscious mother. Id come home at two from a Litquake party in San Francisco, and was starting the day on three hours of sleep.

The nights party had barely begun when I decided that Id have to leave if I was going to survive the coming day. Id just seen my first novel published, and had entered the world Id spent years watching from the outside. I was in. And now that I was in, I wanted to be all in. I wanted to be the Literary It Girl I always thought Id be. And for a few hours the previous night, I was. I was a girl. I was literary. I was it. I was most definitely not someones mother. But the thing about Literary It Girls is that they dont have beautiful babies waiting for them at home, waiting to be nourished and loved at five in the morning. As I held my son to my breast and rocked myself to sleep and wondered if the vermouth would stymie his neurological development, I decided that Id have to make a choice. Was I a mother or a writer?