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I am someone who believes that it is always possible to transform. I think you truly can train a seasoned creature, provided that the mature being is receptive and eager for knowledge. As long as the old dog is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and work to become a improved version.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the skill I am working to acquire, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have battled against, frequently, for my entire life. I have been trying … to develop a calmer response toward huntsman spiders. My regrets to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be realistic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. This includes three times in the last week. In my own living space. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

I doubt 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 (in contrast to other children who adore them). Growing up, I had plenty of male siblings around to guarantee I never had to handle any directly, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the same room as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had crawled on to the family room partition. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, nearly crossing the threshold (in case it ran after me), and discharging half a bottle of pesticide toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it did reach and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, 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 tasked with dealing with it, while I emitted frightened noises and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to vacate the area, douse the illumination and try to forget about its presence before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I visited a pal's residence where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the sill, mostly just stationary. In order to be less fearful, I envisioned the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, in our circle, just lounging in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. Admittedly, it appears quite foolish, but it worked (to some degree). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become more fearless proved successful.

Regardless, I've made an effort to continue. I think about all the sensible justifications not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I am cognizant they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to walk like that. They move in the utterly horrifying and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their many legs transporting them at that terrible speed induces my primordial instincts to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I maintain that increases exponentially when they get going.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have frightening appendages, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – perhaps even more so. My experience has shown that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid instantly leap out of my body and run away when I see one, working to keep composed and breathing steadily, and deliberately thinking about their good points, has actually started to help.

Just because they are furry beings that scuttle about at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, is no reason for they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. I can admit when I’ve been wrong and driven by baseless terror. I’m not sure I’ll ever attain the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” phase, but you never know. Some life is left left in this veteran of life yet.