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I maintain the conviction that it is forever an option to change. I believe you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks, on the condition that the old dog is receptive and willing to learn. So long as the old dog is willing to admit when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the lesson I am attempting to master, although I am set in my ways? It is an significant challenge, something I have struggled with, repeatedly, for my all my days. I have been trying … to develop a calmer response toward huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I run into regularly. Including three times in the recent past. In my own living space. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me at the very thought as I type.

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

I have been terrified of spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to make sure I never had to handle any myself, but I still became hysterical if one was visibly in the general area as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had made its way onto the family room partition. I “dealt” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (in case it ran after me), and discharging a generous amount of insect spray toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it managed to annoy and annoy everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whomever I was in a relationship with or sharing a home with was, by default, the least afraid of spiders between us, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I made frightened noises and fled the scene. When finding myself alone, my method was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to ignore its presence before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I visited a companion's home where there was a very large huntsman who resided within the casement, mostly just hanging out. As a means to be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a girlie, in our circle, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it was effective (to some degree). Put another way, making a conscious choice to become less scared worked.

Whatever the case, I’ve tried to keep it up. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I know they consume things like insect pests (creatures I despise). I am cognizant they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They propel themselves in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way imaginable. The appearance of their many legs carrying them at that alarming velocity causes my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They are said to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I maintain that multiplies when they move.

But it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – perhaps even more so. My experience has shown that employing the techniques of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their beneficial attributes, has begun to yield results.

The mere fact that they are furry beings that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, does not justify they warrant my loathing, or my girly screams. It is possible to acknowledge when my reactions have been misguided and fueled by baseless terror. It is uncertain I’ll ever make it to the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” stage, but miracles happen. There’s a few years for this veteran of life yet.