Raised on Lip Smackers and Defiance
Coming home, 90s style
As the legendary Catwoman once purred in Batman Returns (1992):
"Life’s a bitch. Now so am I."
And let’s be real, Michelle Pfeiffer was the moment.
That is some fabulous '90s grit and glam.
I was born in 1980, which plants me firmly on the edge of Gen X and the older Millennial crowd. Technically, I’m a Xennial; yes, it’s a thing, and we are the sub-genre who grew up with analog childhoods and digital adulthoods.
Lately, the nostalgia has been hitting hard.
When I walk into any store or scroll online, I am assaulted by biker shorts, lace camis, windbreaker tearaway pants, and bedazzled everything. It’s like the 90s raided the racks. And let’s not forget these fashion hits: Hypercolor shirts, stirrup leggings, jelly shoes, butterfly clips, plaid skirts, vest tops, thigh-high socks, and platform penny loafers.
But we didn’t talk about trends back then. We just did them.
We weren’t having deep, intense debates over Z. Cavaricci vs. JNCO jeans. We just wore what our friends wore and hoped no one noticed that our moms still cut our bangs.
But here’s the thing, despite the nostalgia, you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to high school.
Hard pass.
I graduated in ‘98, and while the music was top-tier and life was different, I’ll take adulting over cafeteria politics and acne any day.
Still, those core memories linger.
I remember biking all over Rapid City with my best friend in 4th and 5th grade, without phones or GPS, just a few bucks, and big dreams.
We’d hit up McDonald’s, and if we were running late? Payphones, baby.
And when your crush dedicated a song to you over the radio? That was peak romance. Or total humiliation and emotional devastation if it turned out to be a breakup song. Because that’s how we rolled back then.
Publicly, dramatically, and with a soft rock soundtrack. Well, I guess that happens with social media now, just minus the Bryan Adams song.
I think part of why nostalgia feels so intense now is that the world around us is… a lot.
There’s a yearning for something simpler.
Something slower.
And yeah, the '80s and ‘90s weren’t perfect.
We dared each other to summon Bloody Mary at sleepovers while watching Nightmare on Elm Street because, hello, Johnny Depp in a crop top jersey.
Yum.
And let’s not forget The Craft era, when we all convinced ourselves we were witches-in-training. We'd march into Barnes & Noble’s, straight to the New Age section like we were on a sacred quest, buy a deck of tarot cards, and try to cast a love spell on some dude who didn’t even know we existed because the school dance was 2 weeks away.
But there was a quiet charm to it.
A rawness.
A freedom we didn’t even know we had.
And sure, people can debate generational names all day long.
I don’t care.
I’m proud to be Gen X-adjacent.
I don’t live in the past because I’m afraid of the future—okay, maybe sometimes—but grief has a way of yanking you back in time. For me, it’s the memories with my parents: stargazing with my dad, my grandma and mom watching my tennis matches, and deck parties at my grandparents' house.
That’s the nostalgia I crave.
We all glamorize the past a little, but even the dumb teenage choices are part of the magic.
I turn 45 next month, and as more of the '90s trickle back in, I can’t help but smile.
I see banana clips and platform sandals and think, “Hey, that’s ours.”
And now the younger generation wears it and calls it "ironic."
But here’s the thing—I’m totally okay with it all making a comeback. Flannel over floral dresses, Doc Martens, vintage band tees, oversized hoodies paired with plaid cargo shorts, and the chunkiest shoes known to humanity.
It’s like someone unearthed Delia’s catalog from under a pile of Seventeen & Sassy magazines and said, “Let’s give her another go.”
And I’m here for it. Give me all the layered necklaces, mood rings, and lip smackers. I’ve trained for this comeback my whole life.
If I could go back to the ‘90s for just one day?
I’d do it. Not for the scrunchies or Zima, but to hug the people who aren’t here anymore—my grandparents, my dad, old friends. That’s what tugs at my heart.
When I graduated, I didn’t have a grand plan to escape South Dakota.
I wasn’t itching to leave.
I was just trying to figure out if college was even my thing.
Yeah, no, it wasn't.
No one tells you that turning 18 doesn’t magically make you a grown-up. You’re still a kid with more homework, bigger questions, and, somehow, more pressure to have your entire life mapped out.
But society doesn’t care.
The expectation is that fresh graduates should walk across that stage knowing exactly what they're doing.
Yeah. It’s all bullshit.
And honestly, it’s even harder now.
I should know. I have a 24-year-old son.
The road to adulthood isn’t paved with diamonds and rainbows.
It’s potholes, detours, and the occasional what-the-hell-am-I-doing crisis.
Logan's friends aren’t out there rolling in cash, living in minimalist apartments with matching furniture and life plans.
They’re figuring it out, just like we did. Just with more student debt and fewer job offers that come with health insurance.
The myth of having it all together in your early 20s? It’s exactly that—a myth.
A very well-packaged, Instagram-filtered myth.
When Phil and I moved to Florida, it wasn’t about chasing palm trees and sunshine.
It was survival.
It was saving our marriage.
A better job, better finances, a better shot at building something.
We moved from city to city, state to state, and every time we came back to visit Sioux Falls, it was familiar but different.
The city changed.
Family changed.
The longer we stayed away, the more we wondered if we’d ever return.
And now, in midlife, I can’t call my Grandma Buresh, Grandpa Bob, or my dad to ask about specific family history.
I won’t hear those stories again.
And I didn’t realize how much I’d miss that until I couldn’t get it back.
When my Grandma Betty shares stories, Phil and I make mental notes and then jot down everything when we get home. And she has some good ones (which include Ethel’s All Girl Bar & Lounge).
I’ve been diving into our heritage for years, asking questions and writing things down.
This summer, we’re taking Logan to the places where my family began after coming to America from Sweden and Norway. The community they created.
One of my great-great-grandmothers was essentially banished from her home & village for being pregnant and unmarried.
If she hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t exist.
She wrote letters back to Sweden to her mother and sister, and I read them often.
She was ambitious, wild, and determined to prove people wrong. She wanted to show her family that she wasn’t a dumpster fire.
Hulda died of uterine cancer at 55, but she left a legacy here that I can trace back to. She didn't know the impact she would leave on our family, but it is one I am grateful for.
So yeah, maybe I spend a lot of time in the past but that’s not a bad thing.
It’s where the roots are.
It’s where the stories live.
I’m thankful to share all of it with Logan so that one day he will fully understand where he came from and why it matters.
For a long time, I wrestled with the guilt of moving away—of not being there for every holiday, every little moment. But in those final weeks of my dad’s life, he and my mom reassured me. They told me how proud they were of us and how excited they were that we had spread our wings and experienced life in different places.
That’s time I can’t get back, and I’d give anything to have more of it, but what I do have are the memories and the life experiences that shaped who I am today. And that’s pretty damn neat.
I know South Dakota gets a bad rap (I’ve seen the stories and comments), labeled boring, uneventful, just another flyover state. For a lot of people, the dream is to get out of small towns and cities and never look back, and honestly, I get it. There were times in my 20s and 30s when the idea of moving back to Sioux Falls felt like going backward. I couldn’t imagine settling here again, not after everything we’d seen, the places we’d lived, the lives we’d built elsewhere.
But life has a way of shifting your perspective.
We came back under bittersweet circumstances—grief, change, and the pull of roots we didn’t realize had grown so deep. And sure, we could leave again if we wanted to. The door’s not locked. But the truth is… we don’t want to.
Not anymore.
Because what once felt small now feels steady. What used to feel limiting now feels like comfort. There's beauty in the quiet here, in the wide-open skies, the familiar streets, the history that hums beneath everything. It took time and distance to see it. The older I get, the more I understand that this place, these prairies, these hills, this history isn’t dull.
It’s home.
And it’s lovely.
So, as I prep for our family roots road trip around the Midwest, I’ll pack my Converse, flare jeans, and vintage tees, crank up some Garbage and Tupac, and fully embrace the now while soaking in the past and side-eyeing the future with pure sass and defiance.
“You just gotta keep livin', man, L-I-V-I-N" - David Wooderson
Dazed and Confused