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I am someone who believes that it is forever an option to change. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, provided that the old dog is open-minded and willing to learn. So long as the old dog is willing to admit when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

Well, admittedly, I am the old dog. And the skill I am trying to learn, although I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, a feat I have battled against, frequently, for my entire life. My ongoing effort … to develop a calmer response toward the common huntsman. My regrets 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, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. Including a trio of instances in the previous seven days. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but I'm grimacing and grimacing as I type.

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

An intense phobia regarding spiders dating back to my youth (in contrast to other children who adore them). Growing up, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to engage with any personally, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the general area as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the family room partition. I “managed” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, almost into the next room (lest it chased me), and emptying half a bottle of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and disturb everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, by default, the bravest of spiders in our pairing, and therefore tasked with managing the intruder, while I emitted whimpers of distress and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to ignore its being before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I visited a companion's home where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the casement, for the most part hanging out. As a means to be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a her, a one of the girls, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and overhearing us gab. Admittedly, it appears quite foolish, but it had an impact (to some degree). Or, actively deciding to become less scared did the trick.

Regardless, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They move in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way possible. The sight of their many legs propelling them at that frightening pace induces my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They are said to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I believe that triples when they are in motion.

But it is no fault of their own that they have unnerving limbs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – if not more. I have discovered that employing the techniques of working to prevent have a visceral panic reaction and run away when I see one, working to keep composed and breathing steadily, and deliberately thinking about their good points, has begun to yield results.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that move hastily with startling speed in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, is no reason for they warrant my loathing, or my shrieks of terror. I am willing to confess when my reactions have been misguided and motivated by unfounded fear. I doubt I’ll ever attain the “catching one in a Tupperware container and escorting it to the garden” phase, but you never know. There’s a few years within this old dog yet.