the same but different

I was driving down this road that I haven't been down in a really long time. There have been several times since moving back to Houston/Spring that I have been like a tourist because nothing is the same as it used to be. There are some parts that are unrecognizable. I was driving down this road trying to figure out what it was that was different. It seems that every where I look there are neighborhoods. I don't know where all of the people are coming from that are going to be occupying these houses, but as far as you can see homes that all resemble each other. Any way, so back in the day I would drive down this road road all the time with my dad. He played softball at the softball park down this street. The batting cages we practiced at were down this street. The Sunday drives through "the country" took place down this street and basically I just remember this restaurant, that I thought was the best thing eve,r was located down this street. One day someone started building this house. When I was a kid this house seemed like a mansion. We would drive by and see this house being built one piece at a time. The finished product was beautiful. It was this huge (way exaggerated in my memory) white house with green shudders. There was a porch that wrapped around the entire house. In the front yard there were several trees; the kind of trees that you could climb and spend all day under. I would dream about this house. When I played with my Barbies, in my imagination, this was the house they lived in.

All of that to say that I drove by there the other day and I almost passed it before I realized what it was. It was still as beautiful and perfect, but it was literally surrounded by this big ugly brown fence forming a semi-circle around the property. Sticking up over the top of the big brown fence were massive brick houses that repeated the same design every third house. It almost seemed like there wasn't room for the house; it didn't fit. It seemed like its presence on this street was an inconvenience. My heart sank a little when I saw this and I couldn't really pin point why. The house was the same but it was different.

Today I started thinking about that house and the busy street that now ran out in the front yard and the neighborhood that surrounded the property. I came to the conclusion that I feel like that house (I know this seems like something from the "Perfect Story for Every Sermon Preacher's Story Database" but it is how I felt.) The main components are still there. The functionality, the purpose, the original things that made it what it was...but even though it seemed the same it was different. I wish I could explain the kind of different. I can't though (not from a lack of trying, more of a lack of time to keep back spacing and starting over.) So I feel like that house.