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I am someone who believes that it is forever an option to change. I think you truly can instruct a veteran learner, as long as the old dog is open-minded and ready for growth. So long as the old dog is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and work to become a improved version.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am trying to learn, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an important one, an issue I have battled against, frequently, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. My regrets to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my possible growth as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I run into regularly. Encompassing three times in the last week. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but a shudder runs through me at the very thought as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but I’ve been working on at least attaining 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 make sure I never had to confront any myself, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the immediate vicinity as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and attempting to manage a spider that had crawled on to the living room surface. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (lest it pursued me), and emptying half a bottle of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, my romantic partner at the time or sharing a home with was, automatically, the bravest of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with managing the intruder, while I produced frightened noises and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to forget about its being before I had to enter again.

Recently, I was a guest at a friend’s house where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the casement, mostly just lingering. To be less scared of it, I conceptualized the spider as a her, a gal, part of the group, just lounging in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. Admittedly, it appears rather silly, but it was effective (a little bit). Alternatively, actively deciding to become more fearless proved successful.

Be that as it may, I’ve tried to keep it up. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they consume things like buzzing nuisances (creatures I despise). It is well-established they are one of the planet's marvelous, benign creatures.

Alas, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way imaginable. The appearance of their multiple limbs transporting them at that alarming velocity causes my ancient psyche to enter panic mode. They ostensibly only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I believe that triples when they are in motion.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have scary legs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. My experience has shown that taking the steps of working to prevent have a visceral panic reaction and run away when I see one, trying to remain calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their beneficial attributes, has begun to yield results.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that haunts my sleep, does not justify they deserve my hatred, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by irrational anxiety. I’m not sure 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.