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I maintain the conviction that it is always possible to evolve. I believe you truly can instruct a veteran learner, provided that the mature being is willing and eager for knowledge. Provided that the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the trick I am working to acquire, even though I am set in my ways? It is an significant challenge, an issue I have grappled with, frequently, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to become less scared of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be grounded about my capacity for development as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I run into regularly. Encompassing on three separate occasions in the recent past. Inside my home. Though unseen, but I’m shaking my head at the very thought as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I’ve been working on at least attaining a baseline of normalcy about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders dating back to my youth (as opposed to other children who find them delightful). During my childhood, I had plenty of male siblings around to ensure I never had to engage with any myself, but I still became hysterical if one was obviously in the general area as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and attempting to manage a spider that had made its way onto the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (lest it ran after me), and emptying half a bottle of insect spray toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it did reach and irritate everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the most courageous of spiders between us, and therefore responsible for dealing with it, while I made frightened noises and ran away. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, turn off the light and try to erase the memory of its presence before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a companion's home where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the sill, mostly just lingering. As a means to be more comfortable with its presence, I envisioned the spider as a her, a girlie, part of the group, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. It sounds extremely dumb, but it worked (to some degree). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become more fearless worked.

Whatever the case, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they prey upon things like flies and mosquitoes (my mortal enemies). It is well-established they are one of nature’s beautiful, non-threatening to people creatures.

Alas, they do continue to walk like that. They propel themselves in the most terrifying and almost unjust way possible. The appearance of their multiple limbs propelling them at that terrible speed triggers my ancient psyche to kick into overdrive. They claim to only have a standard octet of limbs, but I am convinced that multiplies when they get going.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that taking the steps of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, trying to remain still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has begun to yield results.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that dart around extremely quickly in a way that haunts my sleep, doesn’t mean they warrant my loathing, or my girly screams. I can admit when I’ve been wrong and motivated by irrational anxiety. I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the “catching one in a Tupperware container and relocating it outdoors” phase, but miracles happen. A bit of time remains left in this veteran of life yet.