🔗 Share this article

I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to transform. I think you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the mature being is receptive and willing to learn. As long as the old dog is willing to admit when it was in error, and work to become a more enlightened self.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the lesson I am working to acquire, even though I am set in my ways? It is an important one, an issue I have battled against, repeatedly, for my entire life. I have been trying … to grow less fearful of those large arachnids. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. Including a trio of instances in the previous seven days. Inside my home. You can’t see me, but I’m shaking my head and grimacing as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who adore them). During my childhood, I had ample brothers around to ensure I never had to engage with any personally, but I still became hysterical if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and attempting to manage a spider that had ascended the family room partition. I “dealt” with it by retreating to a remote corner, nearly crossing the threshold (in case it pursued me), and spraying half a bottle of pesticide toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whoever I was dating or sharing a home with was, as a matter of course, the most courageous of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I emitted low keening sounds and fled the scene. When finding myself alone, my method was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to ignore its existence before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I stayed at a companion's home where there was a notably big huntsman who lived in the window frame, mostly just stationary. As a means to be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a female entity, a gal, one of us, just chilling in the sun and listening to us chat. Admittedly, it appears rather silly, but it was effective (to some degree). Or, making a conscious choice to become less scared worked.

Be that as it may, I've made an effort to continue. I reflect upon all the logical reasons not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they eat things like buzzing nuisances (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 walk like that. They propel themselves in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way possible. The appearance of their many legs transporting them at that frightening pace induces my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They ostensibly only have eight legs, but I maintain that triples when they move.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I’ve found that implementing the strategy of making an effort to avoid immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, attempting to stay composed and breathing steadily, and consciously focusing about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

The mere fact that they are furry beings that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that invades my dreams, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I am willing to confess when I’ve been wrong and motivated by baseless terror. I’m not sure 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.