People (OK, women) talk about “aging gracefully,” by which I assume they mean accepting your age with dignity instead of denial, for example, by graduating to NYDJ jeans vs. continuing to cram your muffin tops into distressed American Eagle skinnies. It sounds like a great concept.

It ain’t a-gonna happen for me, and here’s why.

For starters, “grace” isn’t exactly my middle name. When my mom was teaching junior high, they used to label some developmentally disabled students “Educables,”meaning they could achieve a basic level of functionality. That’s me, stylistically. Some mornings I can barely dress myself.

Then there’s the size issue. Said NYDJs don’t come in my size. I can barely find junior denim that fits.

And then there’s the crux of the issue, my aging-hippie-cowgirl-punk aesthetic. I would love to dress like Claire Underwood: classy, understated, powerful. I can fake it for a few days at a time, if need be, but I can’t keep it up. (I can’t afford it, either.)

I’ve made some concessions to age. No more short skirts. Limited use of shorts. But I can’t quite get my head around what  “age-appropriate” means for me. And that bothers me, because I don’t want to look ridiculous or pathetic. So, I’m trying a strategy that will hopefully allow me to continue to dress like myself without looking like I’m in denial of my age: I’m going to stop coloring my hair.

I’ve been thinking about growing out the gray for quite a while, and now seems like the right place and the right time: Coloring blond hair isn’t exactly a specialty here in Mexico, and being away from hyper-fashionable, youth-obsessed LA, I feel less pressure to maintain a more “youthful” appearance.

After extensive Internet research on growing out gray hair, I found nothing that helped me in the slightest. So I came up with my own plan: Replace my blond highlights with silver-white highlights, and leave the base (which is close to my natural dark blond color) untouched. My thinking was that as my hair grows out, the grays will blend with the silver-white highlights, creating a harmonious, natural-looking appearance.

That was the plan. Then I discovered violet.

In order to remove the yellow from my highlights, Hillary, the fabulous hair professional I visited in Las Vegas, used an Icy White toner that deposited a slight violet tinge on my strands. She assured me the violet would wash out, and it mostly has — but I want it back! I am now obsessed with “violetizing” my gray. When I was a kid, “old ladies” with gray hair would sometimes get a blue or purple rinse. I remember thinking that when I was old like them, I was going to put a blue or purple rinse in my hair.

And so I shall. I shall be an old-ish lady with violet-ish hair.

And size 24 jeans.