Commencement Remarks to the Class of 2026: Girlhood

Good morning, everyone. To our administration, to our incredible teachers, and to all the families in this room, thank you for being here.

I want to start by talking to the families, because I've been thinking about you a lot while I was putting this together. Years ago, you brought us here — some of us tiny and terrified, some pretending not to be — and trusted this school to help shape us. And then, from the other side of it all, you kept showing up for us too. You drove us places, worried about us (probably more than we ever knew), and watched us become different versions of ourselves over and over again. And somewhere inside you, I think you still carry the little girl you first dropped off here, the one who had no idea who she would become. 

I hope that today, when you look at your daughter sitting here, you don’t just feel proud in the way you’re supposed to at graduations. I hope you feel something deeper than that. Because she worked hard at becoming this person and was brave more times than you probably know. She built friendships that made her kinder, braver, and more herself. And now she’s walking into a new beginning carrying pieces of this school, this community, and your love with her. She is so much more than the little girl you first brought here, and getting to witness her growth has been something genuinely beautiful for all of us.

To our teachers: Thank you for believing in us before we truly believed in ourselves. There were moments during my time here where I felt overwhelmed or lost or convinced I wasn’t capable of what was being asked of me, and somehow there was always a teacher who already saw the future version of me waiting on the other side of it. That is not a small gift. That is one of the most significant things one person can do for another, and you did it for us over and over again across so many years, and we are walking out of here today as the people we are, partly because of that.

I want to talk about what my time at Hewitt actually looked like, because the little things matter. I was a member of the incredibly secret Heavy Metal Handbell Society, which sounds fake but is somehow completely real. I have played varsity basketball since seventh grade, which mostly taught me how to keep showing up even when I felt intimidated or exhausted. I went abroad on the Costa Rica trip the summer before my junior year, and achieved more mosquito bites than I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. I was the head of the Latinx affinity space for a few years, where I learned how to lead and foster a community for other Latinx students. I interned for Ms. Kirsch, who taught me that care changes everything, that when somebody puts genuine thought and effort into what they do, you can feel it.

And I made films here - a lot of them. Mostly because there were feelings I didn’t know how to explain, and filmmaking gave me another language. Those films ended up screening in AMC Theaters in Times Square and getting recognized at festivals, which still feels surreal to say out loud. But the film that matters most to me is the first one I made at Hewitt, called Girlhood, which received recognition from the Tribeca Film Festival Student Contest and the Teen Indie Awards. I made it because I was trying to capture what it feels like to grow up surrounded by other girls - the strange, beautiful ways friendships can shape you without you even realizing it’s happening. At the time, I thought I was making something deeply personal. But looking back now, I realize the film was never really just about me - it was about all of us.

Because, the truth is, the answer to what I was trying to say in that film was sitting next to me in class every day. It was in the hallways and on the 6 train rushing to get back from 86th Street before our lunch period ended, and in every tiny moment we shared together over the years. The Class of 2026 taught me that girlhood isn’t just an identity or a phase of life; it’s a place you pass through together. It’s growing up beside people who witness every part of you and choose to love every version anyway. And even when we all go to the places we’re meant to go after this, I think part of us will still belong to the girlhood we built here.

I've spent a lot of my life thinking about how stories end. Not because endings are the most important part, but because the last image a film leaves you with is the one that travels home with you, the one that's still sitting in your chest the next morning when you wake up. 

A good ending doesn't wrap everything up neatly, it just holds the moment long enough for you to feel the full weight of what you've been watching. It lets you sit in it. It trusts you to carry it with you. So if I were shooting this, if today were a film and I had a camera and I could choose the final shot, here is what I would want it to look like:

I would want it to be wide, wide enough to fit all of us. All of our parents are in front with their phones out, trying not to cry, and our teachers are somewhere in the middle of it all, and we're up here in these caps and gowns that somehow feel both ridiculous and exactly right. And the camera would just…hold. It wouldn't cut away. It would just stay in this room, in this moment, on all of these faces that have known each other through so much, and it would let you feel both things at once - how happy we are and how much it hurts to leave; how full this is and how strange it is that something so full has to end; how the same moment can feel like an arrival and a goodbye and somehow, impossibly, both. 

That's the scene. That's the one I'll keep. And I think if you look around this room right now, actually look at the people next to you and behind you and up here with me, you'll feel it too. We are in the last frame of something really, really good. And we were so lucky to be in it together.

Congratulations, Class of 2026. Stay golden and remember, we are infinite.