This past weekend, The Husband and I decided to venture out of the suburbs and into midtown, specifically Atlantic Station. This little enclave is a planned community of shops, restaurants, and apartments crisscrossed by a grid of streets and all situated around a green area called Central Park. It’s a mini-New York City in the heart of Atlanta, except that there’s no Empire State Building or East River or diagonal strip called Broadway or Naked Cowboy. And the grass in “Central Park” is fake, not to mention about twenty by twenty feet. But there’s a Rosa Mexicano and a huge stadium-seating movie theater, and we’re suckers for both of those, so we went.

After stuffing our faces with chips and fresh guacamole and pouring tequila on top of that divine mixture, we headed into the theater and claimed our seats for the showing of Scream 4. Within seconds, it became apparent that Atlanta’s gay male African American community had joined us for the evening, and I don’t think I have to tell you what a bonus round that was: constant yells at the screen (“Ooh, girl, don’t open that door!”) and commentary (“What is she wearing? That is just sad”) combined to create one of the most entertaining movie experiences I can remember. The last time I saw a Scream installment, a caped marauder wearing the Ghostface mask flew up the aisle as the audience wailed in terror. This screening? SO much better.

And maybe that’s because the older I get, the less tolerant I seem to be of fear-inducing scenarios. In my teens and twenties, I displayed a high threshold for adventure: zip lines, bungee jumping, moving to New York City. Now, I get nervous with a little air turbulence during a flight, and if TH gets stuck in traffic that delays his arrival home, I demand constant updates. During our Fabulousss Movie Night, as the first scene came to life and I heard Ghostface’s familiar voice (one that is remarkably consistent over years and killers, a feat explained in the movie by a reference to the new Ghostface app–naturally), I began to wonder if I could still stomach one of my favorite genres. I hid behind my hand for the first kill but was gently coaxed out with high-pitched, surround-sound laughter. And so I made it through.

A cinematic gore-fest was an unintentional and strange way to kick off Holy Week, but it did leave me a little reflective afterward (then again, what doesn’t?). I thought back fifteen years to when the first Scream opened, when I was a freshman in college. Over the years and sequels that followed, I sat in theaters and squealed with friends and stepped back out into the sunlight to live my life, trying to figure out who I was as I followed the roadmap I had created. I had a plan–along with no idea of what lay ahead.

I’ve always had to be careful about listening to voices–I tend to ascribe too much importance to the wrong ones. My constant prayer used to be, “Thy will be done,” but as soon as I opened my eyes and found there was no list floating down from heaven, I set about constructing my own. I had no patience for the Voice that speaks in stillness and silence. I always had to be doing.

And now, at thirty-three–the year Calvary cast its looming shadow over his final days–I find my life, in many ways, just beginning. A new start and a true love and a real home, all in the past year. All that matters most has been gifted rather than attained. I am more tolerant of stretches of silence, of seeming inactivity, because I know who labors on my behalf and the truth that all his ways are not apparent to me, are not written on a calendar for my approval. More often they are whispers showing up in moments of gratitude, seconds of realization that for me, any shadows are just a “small and passing thing” and can be such only because they were anything but, on the path to that hill. I’ve learned to listen to the only Voice that matters, to recognize it above all the others and know that it is, can only ever perfectly be, what love sounds like.