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I am someone who believes that it is never too late to transform. I believe you truly can instruct a veteran learner, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and willing to learn. As long as the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was in error, and strive to be a more enlightened self.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am attempting to master, although I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, a feat I have battled against, repeatedly, for my whole existence. My ongoing effort … to become less scared of huntsman spiders. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Including a trio of instances in the last week. Inside my home. Though unseen, but I’m shaking my head and grimacing 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 dating back to my youth (in contrast to other children who adore them). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to handle any personally, but I still freaked out if one was clearly in the same room as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had made its way onto the living room surface. I “dealt” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, almost into the next room (in case it pursued me), and spraying a generous amount of pesticide toward it. The spray failed to hit 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 living with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I emitted low keening sounds and ran away. When finding myself alone, my tactic was simply to exit the space, turn off the light and try to forget about its existence before I had to enter again.

Recently, I visited a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the window frame, for the most part stationary. As a means to be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a her, a one of the girls, one of us, just lounging in the sun and eavesdropping on us gab. Admittedly, it appears quite foolish, but it worked (a little bit). Alternatively, actively deciding to become less phobic worked.

Regardless, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I know they prey upon things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). It is well-established they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the utterly horrifying and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their numerous appendages propelling them at that alarming velocity induces my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I am convinced that triples when they are in motion.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have frightening appendages, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – perhaps even more so. My experience has shown that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid instantly leap out of my body and retreat when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their good points, has begun to yield results.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that move hastily at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I am willing to confess when my reactions have been misguided and driven by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever attain the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” stage, but one can't be sure. A bit of time remains left in this seasoned learner yet.