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I firmly hold the belief that it is never too late to evolve. I believe you truly can instruct a veteran learner, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and willing to learn. So long as the person is willing to admit when it was wrong, and work to become a more enlightened self.

Alright, I confess, I am that seasoned creature. And the lesson I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, a feat I have grappled with, frequently, for my all my days. The quest I'm on … to become less scared of those large arachnids. My regrets to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be grounded about my potential for change as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is large, in charge, and the one I run into regularly. This includes three times in the last week. Inside my home. You can’t see me, but I’m shaking my head at the very thought as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving a baseline of normalcy about them.

I have been terrified of spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who adore them). During my childhood, I had ample brothers around to make sure I never had to handle any directly, 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 unconscious, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had crawled on to the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, practically in the adjoining space (for fear that it ran after me), and spraying a significant portion of pesticide toward it. The spray failed to hit 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, automatically, the most courageous of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of managing the intruder, while I emitted frightened noises and fled the scene. In moments of solitude, my method was simply to exit the space, turn off the light and try to forget about its presence before I had to enter again.

Not long ago, I stayed at a companion's home where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the window frame, for the most part hanging out. In order to be less fearful, I imagined the spider as a 'girlie', a girlie, one of us, just lounging in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it was effective (to some degree). Alternatively, actively deciding to become more fearless proved successful.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I reflect upon all the logical reasons not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they eat things like insect pests (my mortal enemies). It is well-established they are one of nature’s beautiful, benign creatures.

Alas, they do continue to move like that. They propel themselves in the deeply alarming and almost unjust way imaginable. The appearance of their many legs carrying them at that frightening pace causes my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They are said to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I am convinced that increases exponentially when they move.

Yet it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. My experience has shown that implementing the strategy of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, attempting to stay composed and breathing steadily, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has actually started to help.

Simply due to the reality that they are furry beings that scuttle about extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. It is possible to acknowledge when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever attain the “scooping one into plasticware and relocating it outdoors” level, but miracles happen. A bit of time remains for this seasoned learner yet.