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I am someone who believes that it is never too late to change. I believe you absolutely are able to teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the experienced individual is willing and ready for growth. Provided that the person is willing to admit when it was in error, and work to become a more enlightened self.

OK yes, I am that seasoned creature. And the lesson I am working to acquire, although I am decrepit? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have battled against, frequently, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Apologies to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing three times 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 “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (as opposed to other children who are fascinated by them). Growing up, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to handle any personally, but I still became hysterical if one was obviously in the general area as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and trying to deal with a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “managed” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (for fear that it chased me), and spraying half a bottle of pesticide toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

As I got older, whomever I was in a relationship with or cohabiting with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore responsible for dealing with it, while I made low keening sounds and beat a hasty retreat. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to forget about its existence before I had to enter again.

Not long ago, I was a guest at a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the casement, mostly just lingering. As a means to be less fearful, I envisioned the spider as a her, a girlie, one of us, just chilling in the sun and overhearing us chat. Admittedly, it appears quite foolish, but it worked (to some degree). Put another way, actively deciding to become less scared did the trick.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I recognize they prey upon things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). It is well-established they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Alas, they do continue to walk like that. They travel in the most terrifying and borderline immoral way possible. The vision of their numerous appendages carrying them at that frightening pace induces my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They claim to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I maintain that multiplies when they get going.

But it cannot be blamed on them that they have unnerving limbs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I’ve found that employing the techniques of trying not to immediately exit my own skin and run away when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and consciously focusing about their good points, has actually started to help.

Just because they are hairy creatures that scuttle about extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and motivated by irrational anxiety. I doubt I’ll ever attain the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” phase, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years for this seasoned learner yet.