Yes, yes, it’s Thursday and not Monday.

But I have to write about Glee today.

I must.

Just as it was for me in high school, my love for show choir dramedy is a compulsion. Time seems to be measured this fall in minutes until Glee, and moments watching Glee.

(If I were still a high school drama geek, I would turn that into a riff on “Seasons of Love.” As it stands, you can make up your own.)

These are peppered with text messages from my friends that are nothing but quotes from the most recent episodes of Glee and my own hurried muting of my work computer as I play “Golddigger” and “Push It,” which I would never have listened to in my life had they not been arranged for a choir.

Last night’s episode cemented Glee’s place as a paragon of American television — as the most poignantly honest show about high school that I have ever seen.

Over Labor Day weekend, I went to my parents’ house for a visit. I lived in the same town for eighteen years, and I have three people left there outside my family who I see or talk to on a regular basis. But I swallowed my nervousness, and I made plans to meet up for coffee with my old best friend from high school, who I hadn’t seen in a few years.

She and I were, whether onstage together or alternating behind the scenes, in every school play together. She basically got me a slot in show choir our sophomore year. We shared a locker so messy that we eventually just started keeping all of our belongings in the Green Room. We served together as Vice-President and Treasurer of the Drama Club & Thespian Society.

We ended our high school careers with upwards of 100 International Thespian Troupe points, which, considering the maximum a student could get for any given production was eight points, was a testament to some kind of theatrical insanity.

Or, looking back, this overwhelming desire to do something fantastic, and get out of our high school, get out of our town.

I feel like there’s a reason the drama geeks and show choir gleeks gravitate towards songs like “Skid Row” (‘Please, somebody say I’ll get outta here…’), “Defying Gravity” (‘Kiss me goodbye, I’m defying gravity…’), or even — as Glee reminded me — “Don’t Stop Believin.’”

And I think more than anything I’ve ever seen, last night’s episode of Glee epitomized that raw ache to do better, to be better. Every character in the story arc struck me as so believably high school, which has never happened before watching TV, even on other amazing high school shows like Boy Meets World or Veronica Mars. Most shows about high school seem to find their strength in transcending what they see as the limitations of high school life: asking permission, time limitations, living with your parents.

Glee capitalizes on the trauma of secrecy and indecision, and put a name to it when Finn (who breaks my heart; oh my god) said:

“I don’t want to be a Lima Loser for the rest of my life!”

Everything I ever did in high school, right or wrong, was because I didn’t want to be our town’s variation of a Lima Loser.

But I think the closing musical montage speaks better than I can, at this juncture, about the heart-stopping feeling of joy when you realize that you’re from your own Lima, and still not a loser.

Glee 1×04: \"Single Ladies\" Football Montage

When I saw my friend Jennie over Labor Day weekend, it was easier and more fun than I worried it would be. I worried that I would show up and be the same girl I was when I was Rachel Berry — “I’m better than Tina. But I’m still getting my lipstick flushed down the toilet. And I still don’t have a boyfriend. Everyone has a reason to try except me.” — and that I would leave for home after the weekend with dreams of “La Vie Boheme” in my head again.

But I didn’t.

She and I had both grown up. And I am so looking forward to watching the characters on Glee glow into themselves the same way.