Regrets, I've had a few

I've come to a point in my life that I can reflect and realize that there's no going back, until Doc gets back from the future with the Delorean, that is. For now, I'm content to recall my successes, lament my failures, and assess where I will go from here. I'm not stupidly optimistic; I realize that many of my youthful opportunities are lost and more are dwindling every day. It's humbling, really, and I think it's an important growing excercise to objectively realize that you aren't going to necessarily be the person you had planned to be in grade school. Still, I can't help but regret not taking certain chances and opportunities when they were presented to me, for now they are surely a lost cause. For example, I now know that I will never be able to touch a black person's hair.
I am physically able, of course. But mentally, I know it's a kind of fucked-up, demeaning thing to do, and I couldn't in good conscience feign ignorance. I could have easily gotten away with this as a toddler, when you're laying your hands on everything that doesn't run away anyhow. I probably could have even touched a black person's hair as a teenager, under the rubrick of wanting to extend the olive branch of racial understanding. But I didn't, and I suppose I am paying for my hesitance now. How I would love to caress the kinky tufts of a black man, to squeeze a dreadlock in my fingers and gauge its density! But alas, it is not to be. That ship has sailed, and I will have to make do by petting velcro and imagining what might have been.