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I am someone who believes that it is never too late to evolve. I think you can in fact train a seasoned creature, on the condition that the mature being is open-minded and willing to learn. So long as the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

OK yes, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am working to acquire, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an important one, something I have battled against, repeatedly, for my all my days. I have been trying … to develop a calmer response toward the common huntsman. My regrets to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be grounded about my possible growth as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is imposing, dominant, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing a trio of instances in the recent past. In my own living space. I'm not visible to you, but I'm grimacing with discomfort as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but my project has been at least attaining a baseline of normalcy about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders since I was a child (in contrast to other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to engage with any directly, but I still panicked if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and trying to deal with a spider that had crawled on to the living room surface. I “dealt” with it by retreating to a remote corner, practically in the adjoining space (in case it chased me), and discharging a generous amount of insect spray toward it. The chemical cloud missed 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 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 produced low keening sounds and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my method was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to ignore its being before I had to re-enter.

Not long ago, I visited a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the window frame, mostly just lingering. To be less fearful, I imagined the spider as a her, a gal, one of us, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us gab. Admittedly, it appears rather silly, but it was effective (somewhat). Or, actively deciding to become more fearless worked.

Regardless, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I understand they prey upon things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I am cognizant they are one of nature’s beautiful, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to walk like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and almost unjust way imaginable. The appearance of their numerous appendages carrying them at that alarming velocity triggers my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have eight legs, but I am convinced that increases exponentially when they are in motion.

But it isn’t their fault that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I’ve found that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid immediately exit my own skin and run away when I see one, trying to remain calm and collected, and deliberately thinking about their beneficial attributes, has begun to yield results.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I can admit when fear has clouded my judgment and fueled by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever make it to the “scooping one into plasticware and relocating it outdoors” level, but one can't be sure. Some life is left left in this old dog yet.