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I maintain the conviction that it is never too late to evolve. I think you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, on the condition that the mature being is willing and willing to learn. Provided that the old dog is ready to confess when it was wrong, and work to become a better dog.

OK yes, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am trying to learn, although I am a creature of habit? It is an significant challenge, something I have battled against, frequently, for my whole existence. The quest I'm on … to develop a calmer response toward the common huntsman. My regrets to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be grounded about my potential for change as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I run into regularly. Encompassing on three separate occasions in the last week. Within my dwelling. I'm not visible to you, 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 becoming Normal about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders dating back to my youth (as opposed to other children who adore them). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to make sure I never had to engage with any directly, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and attempting to manage a spider that had made its way onto the living room surface. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (for fear that it chased me), and discharging a significant portion of bug repellent toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whomever I was in a relationship with or sharing a home with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders between us, and therefore tasked with managing the intruder, while I made whimpers of distress and ran away. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to re-enter.

Not long ago, I stayed at a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who made its home in the casement, primarily hanging out. As a means to be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a female entity, a gal, one of us, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. It sounds rather silly, but it worked (to some degree). Or, making a conscious choice to become less phobic proved successful.

Whatever the case, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I understand they prey upon things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I know they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and almost unjust way conceivable. The sight of their many legs propelling them at that terrible speed causes my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I maintain that triples when they move.

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 have discovered that employing the techniques of trying not to instantly leap out of my body and flee when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has proven somewhat effective.

The mere fact that they are hairy creatures that dart around extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my high-pitched vocalizations. It is possible to acknowledge when my reactions have been misguided and motivated by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “scooping one into plasticware and taking it outside” phase, but one can't be sure. A bit of time remains left in this old dog yet.