20 things I have to be thankful for in 2015

Years ago, I celebrated Thanksgiving with my boyfriend Tommy and his family in Queens. Before we ate, we went around the table and listed all the things for which we were thankful. I remember struggling to pull together a list in my head as I waited my turn. It was not one of my finest internal moments.

Either my life has improved considerably in the 17 years since then, or gratitude just comes easier to me now. I haven't actually celebrated Thanksgiving in the United States since 2005, but it's so easy for me to think of things to be thankful for.

Here are the first 20 that popped into my head.

1. A job I enjoy doing.

2. A apartment I enjoy coming home to even more.

3. Old episodes of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 being available to download.

4. That I'm old enough to remember the 1970s (my favourite decade) and where I was and what I was doing when Elvis Presley died. It's the first decade I remember, and sometimes I feel like I dreamed all my memories of it. Reliving the '70s through throwback music, TV, movies and newsreels is almost like turning those maybe-dreams back into reality.

5. My health, give or take chronic headaches, occasional allergies, panic disorder and near-comical hypochondria.

6. Being occasionally mistaken for twentysomething by suitors who were born after I graduated from college. Is the next generation blind or what?

7. My friends all over the planet.

8. Expedia.com and Booking.com, both of which have been playing such vital roles in helping me to travel around the world for years now.

9. Words -- even when they fail me.

10. At least one family member who has always actively shown me he cares, whether or not I make the first move.

11. Body parts that, for the most part, still work.

12. My five relatively intact senses, The optometrist may have diagnosed me as being shortsighted and having an astigmatism yesterday, but I can still see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles.

13. My iPad. How did I ever live without it?

14. Art.

15. My youthful idealism and enthusiasm. Somehow I managed to avoid hopping on the jaded train that turns so many people my age into bitter middle-aged queens. I'm still excited to take the road less traveled (or any road, for that matter) and hopeful that it will lead to an amazing place.

16. My age. I don't necessarily want to get older, but I have no desire to be in my twenties and thirties ever again.

17. Facebook. I have my issues with social media and the havoc it's wreaked on our egos and communication skills. Twitter and Instagram are all about self-promotion, but Facebook can be so much more. When I think of all the people it's brought back into my life and the ones it's kept there, I can't imagine a world without it. I don't want to imagine a world without it.

18. EZTV. It's why I get to live abroad and still keep up with all the US primetime-TV shows that I watch religiously: Empire, How to Get Away with Murder, Black-ish, Nashville, Veep, Girls, Devious Maids and Episodes.

19. Hillary Clinton. There, I said it. I've been solidly Team Hillary since 2008, and that's not about to change

20. My life. It's far from perfect, but I can't think of anyone else's I'd rather be living.