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I firmly hold the belief that it is never too late to evolve. My view is you absolutely are able to teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the experienced individual is willing and willing to learn. Provided that the old dog is willing to admit when it was mistaken, and work to become a improved version.

OK yes, I am the old dog. And the trick I am trying to learn, although I am decrepit? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have battled against, frequently, for my whole existence. My ongoing effort … to develop a calmer response toward those large arachnids. 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, dominant, and the one I encounter most often. This includes three times in the last week. Inside my home. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but my project has been at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders from my earliest years (in contrast to other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had ample brothers around to guarantee I never had to handle any personally, but I still became hysterical if one was visibly in the general area as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the living room surface. I “dealt” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (for fear that it ran after me), and spraying a significant portion of insect spray toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, whoever I was dating or cohabiting with was, by default, the most courageous of spiders in our pairing, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I made whimpers of distress and ran away. In moments of solitude, my method was simply to vacate the area, douse the illumination and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a pal's residence where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the sill, primarily lingering. In order to be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, one of us, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. It sounds extremely dumb, but it worked (somewhat). Put another way, making a conscious choice to become less scared proved successful.

Regardless, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I know they eat things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I am cognizant they are one of the planet's marvelous, benign creatures.

Alas, they do continue to scuttle like that. They move in the most terrifying and almost unjust way possible. The sight of their numerous appendages carrying them at that frightening pace induces my caveman brain to go into high alert. They are said to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I am convinced that multiplies when they move.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have unnerving limbs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that implementing the strategy of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and retreat when I see one, attempting to stay calm and collected, and consciously focusing about their good points, has actually started to help.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that dart around with startling speed in a way that haunts my sleep, doesn’t mean they warrant my loathing, or my shrieks of terror. I can admit when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by irrational anxiety. It is uncertain I’ll ever make it to the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” stage, but you never know. A bit of time remains within this veteran of life yet.