I mistook the doubts for failure—
the cracking skin, the restless ache,
the slow unraveling of plans once held
like gospel in my clenched fists.
This wasn’t the script I was promised.
Midlife, they said, would be
a summit with a view—
not a room with no doors,
not the sound of my own voice
echoing questions I feared to ask.
But here, in the hush between identities,
I feel it.
The hush is not absence.
It’s a womb.
The world calls it a crisis.
But what if it’s a chrysalis?
Butterflies know.
To fly, you must first dissolve.
Inside the shell, there is no map,
just memory, marrow, and mystery
rewriting the self.
Here, time is compost.
Ambition softens.
Roles disintegrate.
What remains is essence—
raw, radiant, un-nameable.
I am not broken.
I am becoming.
Let others rush to reinvent.
I will sit in this sacred dark
until the wings form.
-Tony
Tony Martignetti is a leadership advisor, coach, best-selling author, podcast host, and speaker. He elevates leaders and equips them with the tools to navigate through change and unlock their full multi-dimensional potential. Tony is the author of Climbing the Right Mountain and Campfire Lessons for Leaders.