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I maintain the conviction that it is always possible to change. My view is you truly can train a seasoned creature, provided that the experienced individual is open-minded and ready for growth. Provided that the old dog is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and work to become a better dog.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am working to acquire, although I am decrepit? It is an significant challenge, an issue I have battled against, repeatedly, for my all my days. The quest I'm on … to develop a calmer response toward huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I run into regularly. Including a trio of instances in the previous seven days. In my own living space. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing with discomfort as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least becoming Normal about them.

I have been terrified of spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who adore them). In my formative years, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to confront any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the same room as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and attempting to manage a spider that had crawled on to the lounge-room wall. I “dealt” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (lest it chased me), and spraying half a bottle of bug repellent toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, my romantic partner at the time or sharing a home with was, as a matter of course, the bravest of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I produced low keening sounds and beat a hasty retreat. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to vacate the area, douse the illumination and try to erase the memory of its existence before I had to enter again.

Recently, I was a guest at a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the window frame, primarily hanging out. In order to be less fearful, I conceptualized the spider as a her, a girlie, one of us, just chilling in the sun and listening to us gab. Admittedly, it appears rather silly, but it had an impact (a little bit). 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 reflect upon all the sensible justifications not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I recognize they prey upon things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). I am cognizant they are one of the world's exquisite, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They propel themselves in the most terrifying and almost unjust way conceivable. The sight of their many legs transporting them at that terrible speed triggers my caveman brain to enter panic mode. They claim to only have eight legs, but I maintain that triples when they are in motion.

But it isn’t their fault that they have unnerving limbs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that employing the techniques of making an effort to avoid immediately exit my own skin and run away when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their good points, has actually started to help.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that dart around with startling speed in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my high-pitched vocalizations. It is possible to acknowledge when fear has clouded my judgment and motivated by baseless terror. It is uncertain I’ll ever attain the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” phase, but miracles happen. There’s a few years within this seasoned learner yet.