Normal doesn't exist

Growing up my family was far from "normal". We had a pet peacock that lived in the house until it was so big its' attempts to share my dinner by flying through the air were so disruptive we asked that it move outside. I accepted as a child that my parents were not like everyone else. They had oddities that were only normal in the mainstream of the 1970's granola movement. I put brewer's yeast on my popcorn and was forced to rinse out plastic bags to avoid over consumption. As an adult I came to enjoy the eccentricity of my family and embrace my own. The very fact that any behavior is considered abnormal in our society by definition highlights that most people think there is a normal. Anyone who has ever taken introduction to anthropology in college would be introduced to the concept of cultural relativism in the first few days of class. This concept is basic terms means, there is no normal. This may seem simple but most of the world fights hard to hang on to their own definition of normal. Whether it is arguing against gay marriage or enforcing dress codes at work or in school, everywhere you look normal is trying to be upheld by the masses. The great thing about travel is that it breaks down your own sense of normal when you arrive somewhere where normal for everyone else is alien to you. As an adult I feel much more at home in places where my strangeness s is openly acknowledged and attributed to my status as a foreigner.
The challenge and the slippery slope in this concept is holding on to anything that is right or wrong. Once you spend long enough in another culture your definitions shift and soon things that felt totally ridiculous seem acceptable. In America if I go to the post office I stand in line. If I pushed my way to the front of the line I would be thrown out or at least verbally acausted. Here I must push my way to the front if I have any hope of getting served and I shall not feel upset nor put upon if someone else beats me at this game. This is just one example of how travel changes you. The neat reality that was fed to you from birth becomes broken and suddenly your definition of how things should be (a family, a job, a life) start to change. I can't stop this crumbling of my reality, as I inside am changing. I am now totally ok eating dinner with my fingers (despite this being frowned upon in my native land) and I wouldn't dream wearing shoes in the dentists office. Culture affects us, normal changes, normal never existed to begin with.