First, in the Saturday Essay, Kathryn Buckley reminisces over the 1988 Bette Midler film Beaches, which portrays a friendship between two women whose friendship deepens over the years as they grow older. The similarities between Buckley and her on-screen doppleganger lead her to realizations about a valuable real-life friendship.
Then, Joshua Mohr recounts a difficult story of addiction and betrayal in the Sunday Essay. Mohr’s stay at a rehab facility is wracked with self-doubt and horror at past mistakes. The power of self-deception is terrible and overpowering. When the author moves toward recovery by deleting every contact in his cell phone, his regret intensifies: “Too bad I’ll never be able to delete… memories like I did the phone numbers.”
