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I maintain the conviction that it is never too late to evolve. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, on the condition that the mature being is willing and willing to learn. Provided that the individual in question is willing to admit when it was mistaken, and work to become a more enlightened self.

Alright, I confess, I am that seasoned creature. And the skill I am trying to learn, although I am a creature of habit? It is an important one, something I have struggled with, frequently, for my all my days. My ongoing effort … to become less scared of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be grounded about my possible growth as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, dominant, and the one I encounter most often. Including three times in the last week. Inside my home. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me at the very thought as I type.

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

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (in contrast to other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had ample brothers around to make sure I never had to handle any myself, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the immediate vicinity 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 ascended the living room surface. I “handled” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, nearly crossing the threshold (lest it pursued me), and spraying a generous amount of pesticide toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and irritate everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, by default, the bravest of spiders in our pairing, and therefore in charge of handling the situation, while I made frightened noises and beat a hasty retreat. When finding myself alone, my strategy was simply to exit the space, douse the illumination and try to ignore its existence before I had to enter again.

Recently, I was a guest at a pal's residence where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the casement, mostly just lingering. As a means to be more comfortable with its presence, I conceptualized the spider as a her, a gal, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. This may seem extremely dumb, but it was effective (a little bit). Put another way, making a conscious choice to become less phobic proved successful.

Be that as it may, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the logical reasons 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, benign creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way conceivable. The appearance of their numerous appendages propelling them at that terrible speed induces my primordial instincts to kick into overdrive. They claim to only have a standard octet of limbs, but I maintain that multiplies when they get going.

But it is no fault of their own that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I have discovered that taking the steps of trying not to immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and consciously focusing about their positive qualities, has actually started to help.

Just because they are hairy creatures that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they deserve my hatred, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I am willing to confess when my reactions have been misguided and fueled by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” stage, but one can't be sure. Some life is left within this old dog yet.