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I am someone who believes that it is always possible to change. I believe you truly can instruct a veteran learner, provided that the experienced individual is receptive and eager for knowledge. So long as the individual in question is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the skill I am working to acquire, despite the fact that I am a creature of habit? It is an significant challenge, an issue I have battled against, often, for my whole existence. I have been trying … to become less scared of huntsman spiders. My regrets to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my potential for change as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, dominant, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Including three times in the previous seven days. Inside my home. You can’t see me, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least becoming a baseline of normalcy about them.

I have been terrified of spiders from my earliest years (as opposed to other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to make sure I never had to confront any directly, but I still freaked out if one was clearly in the general area 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 crawled on to the living room surface. I “dealt” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (in case it ran after me), and discharging 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 sharing a home with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders in our pairing, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I emitted low keening sounds and ran away. In moments of solitude, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, douse the illumination and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to return.

Recently, I was a guest at a pal's residence where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the casement, mostly just lingering. To be more comfortable with its presence, I imagined the spider as a 'girlie', a girlie, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and overhearing us gab. It sounds rather silly, but it had an impact (to some degree). Put another way, actively deciding to become more fearless did the trick.

Regardless, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I reflect upon all the logical reasons not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I understand they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). I am cognizant they are one of nature’s beautiful, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the utterly horrifying and almost unjust way imaginable. The appearance of their numerous appendages transporting them at that alarming velocity induces my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I maintain that triples when they are in motion.

Yet it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I’ve found that implementing the strategy of trying not to have a visceral panic reaction and run away when I see one, working to keep composed and breathing steadily, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has begun to yield results.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that move hastily at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they warrant my loathing, or my high-pitched vocalizations. It is possible to acknowledge when fear has clouded my judgment and motivated by unfounded fear. I’m not sure I’ll ever attain the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” stage, but miracles happen. Some life is left left in this old dog yet.