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I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to change. My view is you truly can train a seasoned creature, provided that the mature being is receptive and ready for growth. As long as the old dog is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

Alright, I confess, I am that seasoned creature. And the skill I am trying to learn, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an important one, an issue I have battled against, often, for my all my days. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. This includes a trio of instances in the last week. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but I’m shaking my head and grimacing as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but my project has been at least achieving Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (unlike other children who find them delightful). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to engage with any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the immediate vicinity as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the family room partition. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (in case it ran after me), and emptying half a bottle of pesticide toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and irritate everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, whoever I was dating or living with was, automatically, the least afraid of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I produced low keening sounds and fled the scene. When finding myself alone, my tactic was simply to leave the room, turn off the light and try to erase the memory of its presence before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I visited a pal's residence where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the window frame, primarily hanging out. In order to be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a 'girlie', a girlie, one of us, just chilling in the sun and listening to us gab. This may seem rather silly, but it worked (a little bit). Put another way, making a conscious choice to become less scared did the trick.

Be that as it may, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). I am cognizant they are one of the planet's marvelous, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to move like that. They move in the most terrifying and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their many legs carrying them at that frightening pace triggers my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They are said to only have eight legs, but I believe that multiplies when they are in motion.

But it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid instantly leap out of my body and flee when I see one, attempting to stay calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that invades my dreams, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I can admit when I’ve been wrong and driven by unfounded fear. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” level, but you never know. Some life is left for this veteran of life yet.