Point of View

“My Life Was the Size of My Life” is told from the first-person point of view of a speaker who personifies their life to gain perspective. Acceptance fosters gratitude as the speaker considers their life from a separate vantage point. While the speaker acknowledges both inner and external reality, surrendering to the trajectory of their life does not indicate a passive existence. On the contrary, the speaker embraces a dynamic way of living. This includes moving through different physical and emotional states. The majority of the actions that the speaker and their personified life take in the poem are mundane. Examples include wearing socks and shirts, eating, sleeping, opening and closing windows, making jokes, and baking bread. However, the speaker maintains a reverence for life throughout the poem, even when describing the times they “grew moody and distant” (Line 17). At the end of the poem...