It’s unfortunate that we live in such a panicked, dysmorphic society where women don’t even give themselves a chance to see what they’ll look like as older persons. I want to have some idea of what I’ll look like before I start cleaning the slates.

Roberts criticizes a culture of anxiety and distorted self-perception (“panicked, dysmorphic”) that pressures women to intervene early and aggressively in the natural process of aging. By saying women don’t “give themselves a chance” to see how they will age, she frames cosmetic alteration as a preemptive erasure of identity and lived experience. The metaphor of “cleaning the slates” suggests wiping away lines and marks that function as a personal record; her preference is to first know her unaltered future face before deciding whether to change it. The quote thus reads as a defense of bodily autonomy and patience, and a rebuke to beauty norms that equate aging with failure.